28350920
Experimental results from a pixel front-end for the NA62 experiment with on pixel constant fraction discriminator and 100 ps Time to Digital Converter
The paper presents test results of a front-end ASIC developed for fast timing applications with silicon pixel detectors. Implemented in a 0.13 μm CMOS process, the prototype integrates 107 read-out cells. In an area of 300 μm × 300 μm each cell incorporates a fast transimpedance amplifier with 3 ns peaking time, a Constant Fraction Discriminator (CFD) and a Time to Digital Converter (TDC). The analog front-end is optimized for signals from 1 fC to 10 fC and dissipates lmW from a 1.2 V supply. Electrical tests of the key building blocks and system level aspects are discussed in the paper.
122866398
The NA62 Gigatracker pixel detector system
The silicon tracker for the NA62 experiment has to provide both a time resolution of 150 ps rms and a space resolution of about 100 mu m rms. These challenging specifications require the development of a new readout electronics in order to address the problem of measuring the tracks arrival time with such a high channel density. Moreover, the high particle density (up to 1.5 MHz/mm(2) in the center and 0.8-1 GHz in total) requires a high speed measurement and data transmission in order to keep the dead time below 1%. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
55444434
The NA62 experiment at CERN.
The rare decays K+→ π+νν are excellent processes to make tests of new physics at the highest scale complementary to LHC thanks to their theoretically cleanliness. The NA62 experiment at CERN SPS aims to collect about 100 of such events in two years of data taking, keeping the background at the level of 10%. The physics motivation, experimental technique and the status of the construction of the experiment will be presented.
118676553
Experimental proposal to study the excess at Mjj=150 GeV presented by CDF at Fermilab
We propose an experimental test to verify the unexpected excess at Mjj=150GeV presented by the CDF collaboration in the invariant mass distribution of jet pairs produced in association with a W boson. 
We propose a formation experiment in which the energy range of the Mjj excess is scanned with proton-antiproton interactions at the Tevatron.
2503701
GPUs for real-time processing in HEP trigger systems
We describe a pilot project for the use of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) for online triggering applications in High Energy Physics (HEP) experiments. Two major trends can be identified in the development of trigger and DAQ systems for HEP experiments: the massive use of general-purpose commodity systems such as commercial multicore PC farms for data acquisition, and the reduction of trigger levels implemented in hardware, towards a pure software selection system (trigger-less). The very innovative approach presented here aims at exploiting the parallel computing power of commercial GPUs to perform fast computations in software both at low- and high-level trigger stages. General-purpose computing on GPUs is emerging as a new paradigm in several fields of science, although so far applications have been tailored to the specific strengths of such devices as accelerator in offline computation. With the steady reduction of GPU latencies, and the increase in link and memory throughputs, the use of such devices for real-time applications in high-energy physics data acquisition and trigger systems is becoming very attractive. We discuss in details the use of online parallel computing on GPUs for synchronous low-level trigger with fixed latency. In particular we show preliminary results on a first test in the NA62 experiment at CERN. The use of GPUs in high-level triggers is also considered, the ATLAS experiment (and in particular the muon trigger) at CERN will be taken as a study case of possible applications.
110168648
The front end electronics of the NA62 Gigatracker: Challenges, design and experimental measurements
The beam spectrometer of the NA62 experiment consists of 3 Gigatracker (GTK) stations. Each station comprises a pixel detector of 16 cm 2 active area made of an assembly of 10 readout ASICs bump bonded to a 200 μ m thick pixel silicon sensor, comprising 18000 pixels of 300 μ m × 300 μ m . The main challenge of the NA62 pixel GTK station is the combination of an extremely high kaon/pion beam rate, where the intensity in the center of the beam reaches up to 1.5 Mhit s − 1 mm − 2 together with an extreme time resolution of 100 ps . To date, it is the first silicon tracking system with this time resolution. To face this challenge, the pixel analogue front end has been designed with a peaking time of 4 ns , with a planar silicon sensor operating up to 300 V over depletion. Moreover, the radiation level is severe, 2 × 10 14 1 MeV n e q . cm − 2 per year of operation. Easy replacement of the GTK stations is foreseen as a design requirement. The amount of material of a single station should also be less than 0.5% X 0 to minimize the background, which imposes strong constraints on the mechanics and the cooling system. We report upon the design and architecture of the 2 prototype demonstrator chips both designed in 130 nm CMOS technology, one with a constant fraction discriminator and the time stamp digitisation in each pixel (In-Pixel), and the other with a time-over-threshold discriminator and the processing of the time stamp located in the End of Column (EoC) region at the chip periphery. Some preliminary results are presented.
122001088
The AGILE anticoincidence detector
Abstract AGILE is a γ -ray astrophysics space mission which will operate, starting from 2006, in the 30 MeV–50 GeV energy range with imaging capability also in the 15–45 keV energy band. In order to achieve the required detection sensitivity, all AGILE detectors are surrounded by an anticoincidence detector aimed at charged particle background rejection with an inefficiency as low as 10 −4 . In this work, the design and the structure of this anticoincidence detector are presented, as well as its performances in terms of charged particles detection inefficiency as derived from extensive calibrations performed at CERN PS.
118602523
Field Camera Unit for WSO-UV: Phase A Study Report
World Space Observatory UltraViolet (WSO-UV) is a multipurpose space observatory, made by a 170 cm aperture telescope, capable of UV high-resolution spectroscopy, long slit low-resolution spectroscopy, and deep UV and optical imaging. With a nominal mission life time of 5 years, and a planned extension to 10 years, from a geosynchronous orbit with an inclination of 51.8 degrees, WSO-UV will provide observations of exceptional importance for the study of many unsolved astrophysical problems. WSO-UV is implemented in the framework of a collaboration between Russia (chair), China, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Ukraine. This book illustrates the results of the feasibility study for the Field Camera Unit (FCU), a multi-spectral radial instrument on the focal plane of WSO-UV. The book provides an overview of the key science topics that are drivers to the participation of the Italian astronomical community in the WSO-UV project. The science drivers here illustrated have been used to define the technical requirements for the conceptual and architectural design of the Field Camera Unit (FCU) focal plane instrument. In Chapter I we show that WSO-UV will give a significant contribution to solve the key astronomical problems individuated by the ASTRONET consortium, and which are driving the European Space Agency Cosmic Vision program. Chapter II elucidates the scientific requirements for WSO-UV FCU instrument, discussed in Chapter I, which are translated in a list of verifiable top level requirements usable to make the conceptual design of the FCU instrument. Chapter III is dedicated to the Field Camera Unit opto-mechanical design, its detectors and electronics subsystems. Finally, Chapter IV outlines the AIV and GSE plans and activities for the FCU instrument.
118277826
The Site of the ASTRI SST-2M Telescope Prototype
ASTRI is a Flagship Project financed by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, and led by the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, INAF. Primary goal of the ASTRI project is the design and production of an end-to-end prototype of Small Size Telescope for the CTA (Cherenkov Telescope Array) in a dual-mirror configuration (SST-2M) equipped with a camera at the focal plane composed by an array of Silicon Photo-Multipliers and devoted to the investigation of the highest gamma-ray energy band. The ASTRI SST-2M prototype will be placed at the INAF M.G. Fracastoro observing station in Serra La Nave on the Etna Mountain near Catania, Italy. After the verification tests, devoted to probe the technological solutions adopted, the ASTRI SST-2M prototype will perform scientific observations on the Crab Nebula and on some of the brightest TeV sources. Here we present the Serra La Nave site, its meteorological and weather conditions, the sky darkness and visibility, and the complex of auxiliary instrumentation that will be used on site to support the calibration and science verification phase as well as the regular data reconstruction and analysis of the ASTRI SST-2M prototype.