Edward May

Measurement of the atmospheric neutrino flavour composition in Soudan 2

Abstract The atmospheric neutrino flavour ratio measured using a 1.52 kton-year exposure of Soudan 2 is found to be 0.72 ± 0.19−0.07+0.05 relative to the expected value from a Monte Carlo calculation. The possible background of interactions of neutrons and photons produced in muon interactions in the rock surrounding the detector has been investigated and is shown not to produce low values of the ratio.

Study of cosmic ray composition in the knee region using multiple muon events in the Soudan 2 detector

Deep underground muon events recorded by the Soudan 2 detector, located at a depth of 2100 m of water equivalent, have been used to infer the nuclear composition of cosmic rays in the ``knee`` region of the cosmic ray energy spectrum. The observed muon multiplicity distribution favors a composition model with a substantial proton content in the energy region 8{times}10{sup 5}{endash}1.3{times}10{sup 7} GeV/nucleus. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}

The SOUDAN 2 detector: The design and construction of the tracking calorimeter modules

SOUDAN 2 is a 960-ton tracking calorimeter which has been constructed to search for nucleon decay and other phenomena. The full detector consists of 224 calorimeter modules each weighing 4.3 tons. The design and construction of the modules are described. The modules consist of finely segmented iron instrumented with 1 m long drift tubes of 15 mm internal diameter. The tubes enable three spatial coordinates and dE/dx to be recorded for charged particles traversing the tubes.

ProMC: Input–output data format for HEP applications using varint encoding

Abstract A new data format for Monte Carlo (MC) events, or any structural data, including experimental data, is discussed. The format is designed to store data in a compact binary form using variable-size integer encoding as implemented in the Google’s Protocol Buffers package. This approach is implemented in the ProMC library which produces smaller file sizes for MC records compared to the existing input–output libraries used in high-energy physics (HEP). Other important features of the proposed format are a separation of abstract data layouts from concrete programming implementations, self-description and random access. Data stored in ProMC files can be written, read and manipulated in a number of programming languages, such C++, JAVA, FORTRAN and PYTHON.

Testing a silicon photomultiplier time-of-flight (TOF) system in Fermilab Test Beam Facility

The first results from a time-of-flight beam test of silicon photomultipliers (SiPm) with quartz Cherenkov radiators obtained in the Fermilab Test Beam Facility are discussed. The timing measurement was performed with commercial electronics that were commissioned in the Fermilab SiPm timing facility. The plan for a new time-of-flight system for the test beam facility, with the goal of obtaining a few tens picosecond time resolution is presented.

The observation of underground muons from the direction of Cygnus X-3 during the January 1991 radio flare

Abstract Muons recorded in the Soudan 2 underground nucleon decay detector from January 1989 to February 1991 have been examined for any correlation with the radio flares of Cygnus X-3 observed during this period. On two nearby days during the radio flare of January 1991 a total of 32 muons within 2.0° of the Cygnus X-3 direction were observed when 11.4 were expected.

Real time evolution of antimony deposition for high performance alkali photocathode development

The development of X-ray techniques opens new opportunities for real-time in-situ study of photocathode growth process in details. The initial ultra thin Sb films during photocathode process were investigated on multiple substrates based on different applications. The real-time X-ray scattering and post-growth X-ray reflectivity and diffraction measurement were performed and analyzed. Experiment results indicate that Sb deposition performs a phase change from amorphous to crystalline, the critical thicknesses are different on B33 float glass, Si and Mo. Two methods were applied for film thickness calculation from X-ray scattering data, and they agree well with thickness monitor result. Sb films deposited on different substrates show similar final film roughnesses. The real time x-ray study indicates that the initial Sb layer deposition process on different substrate has different structure during deposition, the optimized thickness of the initial Sb layer may varies depends on the substrate. This study also paved the road for further study of the more complex alkali metal vapor diffusion process in photocathode growth.

Development of Large Area, Pico-second resolution Photo-Detectors and associated readout electronics

The Large Area Pico-second Photo-detectors described in this contribution incorporate a photo-cathode and a borosilicate glass capillary Micro-Channel Plate (MCP) pair functionalized by atomic layer deposition (ALD) of separate resistive and electron secondary emitters materials. They may be used for biomedical imaging purposes, a remarkable opportunity to apply technologies developed in HEP having the potential to make major advances in the medical world, in particular for Positron Emission Tomography (PET). If daisy-chained and coupled to fast transmission lines read at both ends, they could be implemented in very large dimensions. Initial testing with matched pairs of small glass capillary test has demonstrated gains of the order of 105 to 106. Compared to other fast imaging devices, these photo-detectors are expected to provide timing resolutions in the 10–100ps range, and two-dimension position in the sub-millimeter range. A 6-channel readout ASIC has been designed in 130nm CMOS technology and tested. As a result, fast analog sampling up to 17 GS/s has been obtained, the intrinsic analog bandwidth being presently under evaluation. The digitization in parallel of several cells in two microseconds allows getting off-chip digital data read at a maximum rate of 40 MHz. Digital Signal Processing of the sampled waveforms is expected achieving the timing and space resolutions obtained with digital oscilloscopes.

SOME REMARKS ON PARALLEL DATA MINING USING A PERSISTENT OBJECT MANAGER

Our underlying assumption is that high performance data management will be as important as high performance computing by the beginning of the next millennium. Given this, data mining will take on increasing importance. In this paper, we discuss our experience with parallel data mining on an IBM Sp-2, focusing on four issues which we feel are are emerging as critical for data mining applications in general.

Soudan 2 Data Acquisition and Trigger Electronics

The 1.1 kton Soudan 2 calorimetric drift-chamber detector is read out by 16K anode wires and 32K cathode strips. Preamps from each wire or strip are bussed together in groups of 8 to reduce the number of ADC channels. The resulting 6144 channels of ionization signal are flash-digitized every 200 ns and stored in RAM. The raw data hit patterns are continually compared with programmable trigger multiplicity and adjacency conditions. The data acquisition process is managed in a system of 24 parallel crates each containing an Intel 80C86 microprocessor, which supervises a pipe-lined data compactor, and allows transfer of the compacted data via CAMAC to the host computer. The 80C86s also manage the local trigger conditions and can perform some parallel processing of the data. Due to the scale of the system and multiplicity of identical channels, semi-custom gate array chips are used for much of the logic, utilizing 2.5 micron CMOS technology.