NaI (Tl) calorimeter calibration and simulation for Coulomb sum rule experiment in Hall-A at Jefferson Lab

A precision measurement of inclusive electron scattering cross sections is carried out at Jefferson Lab in the quasi-elastic region for 4He, 12C, 56Fe and 208Pb targets. The longitudinal (RL) and transverse (RT) response functions of the nucleon need to be extracted precisely in the momentum transfer range 0.55 GeV/c≤ | q | ≤1.0 GeV/c. To achieve the above goal, a NaI (Tl) calorimeter is used to distinguish good electrons from background, including pions and low energy electrons rescattered from the walls of the spectrometer magnets. Due to a large set of kinematics and changes in HV settings, a number of calibrations are performed for the NaI (Tl) detector. Corrections for a few blocks of NaI (Tl) with bad or no signal are applied. The resolution of the NaI (Tl) detector after calibration reached δE/√E ≅ 3% at E=1 GeV. The performance of the NaI (Tl) detector is compared with a simulation. The good calibration and background analysis for the NaI(Tl) detector are very important for the reduction of the systematic error of cross sections and the separation of RL and RT. (authors)