Evidence for the compensation condition in Si / U hadronic calorimetry achieved by the local hardening effect

In a hadronic calorimeter with silicon readout, a combination of thin plates oflow-Z andhigh-Z materials used as absorbers enables the reduction of the calorimeter response to the electromagnetic component of the incoming hadronic showers (the "local hardening effect"). As a result, a ratio varying from e/π> 1 toe/π>is obtained as a function of thelow-Z material thickness, demonstrating the possibility of achieving the compensation condition(e/π= 1)by exploiting the local hardening effect.