F. Barbosa

The CLAS drift chamber system

Abstract Experimental Hall B at Jefferson Laboratory houses the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer, the magnetic field of which is produced by a superconducting toroid. The six coils of this toroid divide the detector azimuthally into six sectors, each of which contains three large multi-layer drift chambers for tracking charged particles produced from a fixed target on the toroidal axis. Within the 18 drift chambers are a total of 35,148 individually instrumented hexagonal drift cells. The novel geometry of these chambers provides for good tracking resolution and efficiency, along with large acceptance. The design and construction challenges posed by these large-scale detectors are described, and detailed results are presented from in-beam measurements.

The GlueX central drift chamber: Design and performance

Tests and studies concerning the design and performance of the GlueX Central Drift Chamber (CDC) are presented. A full-scale prototype was built to test and steer the mechanical and electronic design. Small scale prototypes were constructed to test for sagging and to do timing and resolution studies of the detector. These studies were used to choose the gas mixture and to program a Monte Carlo simulation that can predict the detector response in an external magnetic field. Particle identification and charge division possibilities were also investigated.

The GlueX DIRC project

The GlueX experiment was designed to search for and study the pattern of gluonic excitations in the meson spectrum produced through photoproduction reactions at a new tagged photon beam facility in Hall D at Jefferson Laboratory. The particle identification capabilities of the GlueX experiment will be enhanced by constructing a DIRC (Detection of Internally Reflected Cherenkov light) detector, utilizing components of the decommissioned BaBar DIRC. The DIRC will allow systematic studies of kaon final states that are essential for inferring the quark flavor content of both hybrid and conventional mesons. The design for the GlueX DIRC is presented, including the new expansion volumes that are currently under development.

A drift chamber system for a toroidal detector

Abstract We present design details for drift chambers to be used in the CLAS detector at CEBAF. Novel features include nonparallel endplates fabricated from composite materials, a gas mixture which includes helium to reduce multiple scattering, low wire tension, and a hexagonal cell layout. Magnetic field strength in the active region ranges from 0 to 2 T, and wire length varies from 10 to 300 cm. We discuss specific construction details for the outer drift chambers.

Integrated tests of a high speed VXS switch card and 250 MSPS flash ADCs

High trigger rate nuclear physics experiments proposed for the 12 GeV upgrade at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility create a need for new high speed digital systems for energy summing. Signals from electronic detectors will be captured with the Jefferson Lab FADC module, which collects and processes data from 16 charged particle sensors with 10 or 12 bit resolution at 250 MHz sample rate. Up to sixteen FADC modules transfer energy information to a central energy summing module for each readout crate. The sums from the crates are combined to form a global energy sum that is used to trigger data readout for all modules. The Energy Sum module and FADC modules have been designed using the VITA-41 VME64 switched serial (VXS) standard. The VITA- 41 standard defines payload and switch slot module functions, and offers an elegant engineered solution for Multi-Gigabit serial transmission on a standard VITA-41 backplane. The Jefferson Lab Energy Sum module receives data serially at a rate of up to 6 Giga-bits per second from the FADC modules. Both FADC and Energy Sum modules have been designed and assembled and this paper describes the integrated tests using both high speed modules in unison.

Implementation of a level 1 trigger system using high speed serial (VXS) techniques for the 12GeV high luminosity experimental programs at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility

We will demonstrate a hardware and firmware solution for a complete fully pipelined multi-crate trigger system that takes advantage of the elegant high speed VXS serial extensions for VME. This trigger system includes three sections starting with the front end crate trigger processor (CTP), a global Sub-System Processor (SSP) and a Trigger Supervisor that manages the timing, synchronization and front end event readout. Within a front end crate, trigger information is gathered from each 16 Channel, 12bit Flash ADC module at 4nS intervals via the VXS backplane, to a Crate Trigger Processor (CTP). Each Crate Trigger Processor receives these 500MB/S VXS links from the 16 FADC-250 modules, aligns skewed data inherent of Aurora protocol, and performs real time crate level trigger algorithms. The algorithm results are encoded using a Reed-Solomon technique and transmission of this Level 1 trigger data is sent to the SSP using a multi-fiber link. The multi-fiber link achieves an aggregate trigger data transfer rate to the global trigger at 8Gb/s. The SSP receives and decodes Reed-Solomon error correcting transmission from each crate, aligns the data, and performs the global level trigger algorithms. The entire trigger system is synchronous and operates at 250MHz with the Trigger Supervisor managing not only the front end event readout, but also the distribution of the critical timing clocks, synchronization signals, and the global trigger signals to each front end readout crate. These signals are distributed to the front end crates on a separate fiber link and each crate is synchronized using a unique encoding scheme to guarantee that each front end crate is synchronous with a fixed latency, independent of the distance between each crate. The overall trigger signal latency is ≪3uS, and the proposed 12GeV experiments at Jefferson Lab require up to 200KHz Level 1 trigger rate.

Design and construction of a high-energy photon polarimeter

Abstract We report on the design and construction of a high-energy photon polarimeter for measuring the degree of polarization of a linearly-polarized photon beam. The photon polarimeter uses the process of pair production on an atomic electron (triplet production). The azimuthal distribution of scattered atomic electrons following triplet production yields information regarding the degree of linear polarization of the incident photon beam. The polarimeter, operated in conjunction with a pair spectrometer, uses a silicon strip detector to measure the recoil electron distribution resulting from triplet photoproduction in a beryllium target foil. The analyzing power Σ A for the device using a 75 μ m beryllium converter foil is about 0.2, with a relative systematic uncertainty in Σ A of 1.5%.

Construction update and drift velocity calibration for the CLAS drift chamber system

Abstract We briefly describe the drift chamber system for the CLAS detector at CEBAF, concentrating on the method which will be used to calibrate the drift velocity function. We identify key features of the function which should apply to any small-cell drift chamber geometry in which the cathode and anode surfaces are wires. Using these ideas, we describe a simple method to compensate for variations in the drift velocity function due to environmental changes.

A 250 MHz Level 1 Trigger and Distribution System for the GlueX experiment

The GlueX detector now under construction at Jefferson Lab will search for exotic mesons though photoproduction (10^8 tagged photons per second) on a liquid hydrogen target. A Level 1 hardware trigger design is being developed to reduce total electromagnetic (≪ 200 MHz) and hadronic (≫ 350 kHz) rates to less than 200 kHz. This trigger is deadtimeless and operates on a global synchronized 250 MHz clock. The core of the trigger design is based on a custom pipelined flash ADC board that uses a VXS backplane to collect samples from all ADCs in a VME crate. A custom switch-slot board called a Crate Trigger Processor (CTP) processes this data and passes the crate level data via a multi-lane fiber optic link to the Global Trigger Processing Crate (also VXS). Within this crate detector sub-system processor (SSP) boards can accept all individual crate links. The subsystem data are processed and finally passed to global trigger boards (GTP) where the final L1 decision is made. We present details of the trigger design and report some performance results on current prototype systems

Radiation tolerance survey of selected silicon photomultipliers to high energy neutron irradiation

A key feature of silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) that can hinder their wider use in medium and high energy physics applications is their relatively high sensitivity to high energy background radiation, with particular regard to high energy neutrons. Dosages of 1010 neq/cm2 can damage them severely. In this study, some standard versions along with some new formulations are irradiated with a high intensity 241AmBe source up to a total dose of 5 × 109 neq/cm2. Key parameters monitored include dark noise, photon detection efficiency (PDE), gain, and voltage breakdown. Only dark noise was found to change significantly for this range of dosage. Analysis of the data indicates that within each vendors product line, the change in dark noise is very similar as a function of increasing dose. At present, the best strategy for alleviating the effects of radiation damage is to cool the devices to minimize the effects of increased dark noise with accumulated dose.