An electron-hadron separator for digital sampling calorimeters

A fast and effective algorithm for electromagnetic and hadronic shower separation has been developed for the digital sampling calorimeter of the CHARM II experiment. It is based on a generalization of the minimal spanning tree concept and can be easily applied to other existing calorimeters. In this particular application, which requires the highest efficiency for retaining electromagnetic showers, one gets, for 99% efficiency, a rejection factor of the order of 100 for hadronic showers.