FPGA-based Trigger System for the Fermilab SeaQuest Experimentz

Journal Article · Thu Sep 10 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. Section A, Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2015.09.001· OSTI ID:1223257

Shiu, Shiuan-Hal ^[1]; Wu, Jinyuan ^[2]; McClellan, Randall Evan ^[3]; Chang, Ting-Hua ^[4]; Chang, Wen-Chen ^[4]; Chen, Yen-Chu ^[4]; Gilman, Ron ^[5]; Nakano, Kenichi ^[6]; Peng, Jen-Chieh ^[3]; Wang, Su-Yin ^[7]

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1. Academia Sinica, Taipei (Taiwan); National Central Univ., Taoyuan City (Taiwan)
2. Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
3. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
4. Academia Sinica, Taipei (Taiwan)
5. State Univ. of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ (United States)
6. Tokyo Inst. of Technology (Japan)
7. Academia Sinica, Taipei (Taiwan); Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); National Kaohsiun Normal Univ., Kaohsiung County (Taiwan)

The SeaQuest experiment (Fermilab E906) detects pairs of energetic μ⁺ and μ^-produced in 120 GeV/c proton–nucleon interactions in a high rate environment. The trigger system we used consists of several arrays of scintillator hodoscopes and a set of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) based VMEbus modules. Signals from up to 96 channels of hodoscope are digitized by each FPGA with a 1-ns resolution using the time-to-digital convertor (TDC) firmware. The delay of the TDC output can be adjusted channel-by-channel in 1-ns step and then re-aligned with the beam RF clock. The hit pattern on the hodoscope planes is then examined against pre-determined trigger matrices to identify candidate muon tracks. Finally, information on the candidate tracks is sent to the 2nd-level FPGA-based track correlator to find candidate di-muon events. The design and implementation of the FPGA-based trigger system for SeaQuest experiment are presented.

• Research Organization: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-07CH11359
• OSTI ID: 1223257
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1247200
• Report Number(s): FERMILAB-PUB-15-391-E; arXiv eprint number arXiv:1509.04864
• Journal Information: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. Section A, Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 802; ISSN 0168-9002
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
trigger
FPGA firmware
TDC
muon pairs