The ATLAS hadronic tile calorimeter: from construction toward physics

The tile calorimeter, which constitutes the central section of the ATLAS hadronic calorimeter, is a non-compensating sampling device made of iron and scintillating tiles. Almost all the work to build the calorimeter has been completed and most of the effort is now directed toward the final assembly and testing in the experimental area. The lay-out of the calorimeter and the tasks carried out during construction are described after a brief reminder of the requirements that drove the calorimeter design. During the last years a lot of work has also been put in the test accomplish the tests on beam to set the electromagnetic scale, to study its uniformity and to acquire data to tune the detector simulation. The test beam setup and selected results obtained from the acquired data are described. In this last year a few months long test on beam has been carried out acquiring data with a complete slice of the central ATLAS calorimeter. The data collected at the test on beam are crucial to study the algorithms to reconstruct the hadronic energy on single particle. The generalization of these algorithms to reconstruct the jet energy will be the starting point for many physics studies where jets play a crucial role. The results obtained applying these algorithms to simulated di-jet events are shown in the last section of this note.