A. Papi

Radiation damage of electronic components to be used in a space experiment

Abstract Commercial off-the-shelf components can be succesfully used in scientific payloads installed in spacecraft flying on Low Earth Orbits (LEO). Several experiments (AMS01, NINA) have already used these components, some others are planning to use them (AMS02, PAMELA and GLAST). In order to establish the reliability of these components careful tests need to be performed according to space qualification rules. There are two main types of possible damage that needs to be tested: the total dose damage and the single event effects (SEE). In this paper we will describe the physical cause of both the effects, explain how to conduct a test according to ESA/SSC standard rules and give some examples of components that have been tested by the AMS collaboration.

Use of FPGA embedded processors for fast cluster reconstruction in the NA62 liquid krypton electromagnetic calorimeter

The goal of the NA62 experiment at the CERN SPS is the measurement of the Branching Ratio of the very rare kaon decay K+??+??? with a 10% accuracy by collecting 100 events in two years of data taking. An efficient photon veto system is needed to reject the K+??+??0 background and a liquid krypton electromagnetic calorimeter will be used for this purpose in the 1-10 mrad angular region. The L0 trigger system for the calorimeter consists of a peak reconstruction algorithm implemented on FPGA by using a mixed parallel architecture based on soft core Altera NIOS II embedded processors together with custom VHDL modules. This solution allows an efficient and flexible reconstruction of the energy-deposition peak. The system will be totally composed of 36 TEL62 boards, 108 mezzanine cards and 215 high-performance FPGAs. We describe the design, current status and the results of the first performance tests.

Study of radiation damage and substrate resistivity effects from beam test of silicon microstrip detectors using LHC readout electronics

Abstract We present the beam test results of single-sided silicon microstrip detectors, with different substrate resistivities. The effects of radiation damage are studied for a detector irradiated to a fluence of 2.4×10 14 n / cm 2 . The detectors are read out with the APV6 chip, which is compatible with the 40 MHz LHC clock. The performance of different detectors and readout modes are studied in terms of signal-to-noise ratio and efficiency.

First operation of the level-0 trigger of the NA62 liquid krypton calorimeter

The NA62 experiment at CERN Super Proton Synchrotron aims at studying ultra-rare decays of charged kaons for precise tests of the Standard Model. The complete experimental setup is being commissioned for the first physics data taking in the autumn of 2014. This paper presents the final design and implementation of the Level-0 trigger system of the LKr calorimeter, acting as hermetic photon veto of the experiment in the 1-8.5 mrad region. The first on-field performance tests are presented.

A pulsed nanosecond IR laser diode system to automatically test the Single Event Effects in the laboratory

A pulsed nanosecond IR laser diode system to automatically test the Single Event Effects in laboratory is described. The results of Single Event Latchup (SEL) test on two VLSI chips (VA HDR64, 0.8 and 1:2 mm technology) are discussed and compared to those obtained with high-energy heavy ions at GSI (Darmstadt). r 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Development and test results of a digital data transmission system for Liquid Krypton Calorimeter level 0 trigger system for the NA62 experiment at CERN

The NA62 experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) aims to measure the Branching Ratio of the very rare kaon decay K+ → π+νν, collecting O (100) events with a 10% background to make a stringent test of the Standard Model. One of the main backgrounds to the proposed measurement is represented by the K+ → π+π0, decay. To suppress this background an efficient photo veto system is foreseen with the Liquid Krypton (LKr) Electromagnetic Calorimeter Level 0 (L0) trigger. The development of a high-performance as well as reliable digital data system addresses this issue providing a mean to have the right bandwidth and efficiency to transmit experimental data to and from the counting room. This paper describes the LKr L0 trigger system, with particular emphasis for what concerns a LVDS digital data link used inside the system. Some aspects relative to the test set-up implementation as well as protocol test used to evaluate and qualify the digital data system are also part of the paper.

First data from the EGLE experiment onboard the ISS

EGLE is a wide frequency band search- coil magnetometer designed and built at the Roma Tre University. It has been installed onboard the ISS by the Italian astronaut Roberto Vittori on April 25, 2005 within the LAZIO- EGLE experiment carried out during the ENEIDE Soyuz mission. The scope of the experiment is to test EGLE in space and to investigate geomagnetic field variations. The main applications of EGLE are the study of electromagnetic environment inside the ISS, the correlation of magnetic field data with particle fluxes detected by LAZIO particle detector, and the monitoring of ionospheric perturbations possibly caused by Earth seismic activity. Since continuous electromagnetic field measurements on board the ISS are important for diverse space applications, a magnetometer with a suitable design is requested. Appropriate solutions for these applications, which have been adopted by EGLE, are in particular the use of 1- Wire technology and the possibility to detect by means of a search- coil magnetometer a large portion of the ULF frequency band, usually measured by flux- gate probes. To investigate the topside ionosphere electromagnetic environment and stability of Van Allen radiation belts in relation with seismic and anthropogenic electromagnetic emissions, a specific satellite mission (the ESPERIA project) has been designed for the Italian Space Agency (ASI), and up to now a few instruments of its payload have been built and tested in space. One of them is exactly the EGLE search- coil magnetometer. The first magnetic observations performed by this instrument reveal to be promising and demand for a further and deeper analysis based on a longer time series of data.

The tagging detector for the NA48 experiment

Abstract The final design of the NA48 tagging system is described and a discussion of the 1992 test run results for the detector prototype is presented. A time resolution of about 90 ps is obtained with standard electronics, and a light yield of 300–400 p.e. is measured. A 450 MHz 6 bit FADC system has been designed and tested. This system has shown an intrinsic time resolution of 50 ps, and a double pulse resolution of 7 ns. A high precision alignment procedure allows to achieve a detector efficiency consistent with 100%. The technical and mechanical features of the design are well suited for the purpose of the experiment.

The Level-0 calorimetric trigger of the NA62 experiment

The NA62 experiment at the CERN SPS aims at measuring the branching ratio of the very rare kaon decay K+ → π+ ν (expected 10−10) with a 10% background. Since an high-intensity kaon beam is required to collect enough statistics, the Level-0 trigger plays a fundamental role in both the background rejection and in the particle identification. The calorimetric trigger collects data from various calorimeters and it is able to identify clusters of energy deposit and determine their position, fine-time and energy. This paper describes the complete hardware commisioning and the setup of the trigger for the 2015 physics data taking.

The Level 0 trigger processor of the NA62 liquid krypton electromagnetic calorimeter

The NA62 experiment at the CERN SPS aims to measure the Branching Ratio of the ultra-rare decay K+ → π+ νν̅, collecting about 100 events in two years of data taking with a signal to background ratio of 10:1. An hermetic photon veto system has been designed to efficiently reject the pi0 background, one of the main background sources, and the 20-ton liquid krypton calorimeter is a fundamental component of such system in the angular acceptance region 1-10 mrad. We present the design of the Level 0 trigger processor that identifies electromagnetic clusters in the calorimeter providing information on time, position and energy reconstruction for each cluster. It is composed of 36 readout boards (TEL62), organized in a three layer parallel system, 108 mezzanines and 215 high-performance FPGAs. It is designed to sustain an instantaneous hit rate of 30 MHz, to process data with a latency of about 100 μs, and to achieve a time resolution of 1.5 ns on the single cluster. Updated production and functionality test results of a trigger slice are presented.