CMS Drift Tube Chambers Read-Out Electronics

With CMS installation nearing completion, the three levels of the final read-out system of the Drift Tube (DT) chambers are presented. First, are the Read Out Boards (ROB), responsible for time digitization of the signals generated by a charged particle track. Second, the Read Out Server (ROS) boards receive data from 25 ROB channels through a 240-Mbps copper link and perform data merging for further transmission through a 800 Mbps optical link. Finally, the Detector Dependent Units (DDU) merge data from 12 ROS to build an event fragment and send it to the global CMS DAQ through an S-LINK64 output at 320 MBps. DDUs also receive synchronization commands from the TTC system (Timing, Trigger, and Control), perform error detection on data, and send a fast feedback to the TTS (Trigger Throttling System). Functionality of these electronics has been validated in the laboratory and in several test-beams, including an exercise integrated with a fraction of the whole CMS detector and electronics that demonstrated proper operation and integration within the final CMS framework

On the electromagnetic energy resolution of Cherenkov-fiber calorimeters

Electromagnetic calorimeters which sample the Cherenkov radiation of shower particles in optical fibers operate in a markedly different manner from calorimeters which rely on the dE/dx of shower particles. The well-understood physics of electromagnetic shower development is applied to the case of Cherenkov-fiber calorimetry (also known as quartz fiber calorimetry) and the results of systematically performed studies are considered in detail to derive an understanding of the critical parameters involved in energy measurement using such calorimeters. A quantitative parameterization of Cherenkov-fiber calorimetry electromagnetic energy resolution is proposed and compared with existing experimental results

The ALICE Zero Degree Calorimeters

In the ALICE experiment at Cern LHC, a set of hadron calorimeters will be used to determine the centrality of the Pb-Pb collision. The spectator protons and neutrons, will be separated from the ion beams, using the separator magnet (D1) of the LHC beam optics and respectively detected by a proton (ZP) and a neutron (ZN) "Zero-degree Calorimeter" (ZDC). The detectors will be placed in front of the separator D2 magnet, 115 meters away from the beam intersection point. The ZDCs are quartz-fiber spaghetti calorimeters that exploit the Cherenkov light produced by the shower particles in silica optical fibers.This technique offers the advantages of high radiation hardness (up to several Grad), fast response and reduced lateral dimension of the detectable shower. In addition, quartz-fiber calorimeters are intrinsically insensitive to radio-activation background, which produces particles below the Cherenkov threshold.The ALICE ZDC should have an energy resolution comparable with the intrinsic energy fluctuations, which range from about 20 0.000000or central events to about 5 0.000000or peripheral ones, according to simulations that use HIJING as event generator. The fiber-to-absorber filling ratio must be chosen as a good compromise between the required energy resolution and the fiber cost.The design of the proposed calorimeter will be discussed, together with the expected performances. Whenever possible, the simulated results will be compared with the experimental ones, obtained with the built prototypes and with the NA50 ZDC, which can be considered as a working prototype for the ALICE neutron calorimeter

Zero degree Cherenkov calorimeters for the ALICE experiment

International audienceThe collision centrality in the ALICE experiment will be determined by the Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDCs) that will measure the spectator nucleons energy in heavy ion collisions. The ZDCs detect the Cherenkov light produced by the fast particles in the shower that cross the quartz fibers, acting as the active material embedded in a dense absorber matrix. Test beam results of the calorimeters are presented

Tracking in 4 dimensions

In this contribution we review the progress towards the development of a novel type of silicon detectors suited for tracking with a picosecond timing resolution, the so called Ultra-Fast Silicon Detectors. The goal is to create a new family of particle detectors merging excellent position and timing resolution with GHz counting capabilities, very low material budget, radiation resistance, fine granularity, low power, insensitivity to magnetic field, and affordability. We aim to achieve concurrent precisions of ~ 10 ps and ~ 10 μm with a 50 μm thick sensor. The first part of this contribution explains the basic concepts of low-gain silicon sensors, while in the following the main results are presented, together with the efforts to make the design radiation resistance

On the Design of an Intelligent Sensor Network for Flash Flood Monitoring, Diagnosis and Management in Urban Areas

We propose an intelligent sensor system based on a new sensing methodology, relying also on 3D map reconstruction techniques, for computing with high precision, in real-time and without human intervention the parameters needed for stream-flow computation: water levels, morphology of the streams of all potentially flooded areas by each controlled stream. The collected data will be continuously transmitted, through a communication infrastructure, to software agents designed to compute the stream-flow and to quantify the spatial distribution of flood risk for each controlled watershed. The computed risks, together with other data coming from other sources (barometric sensors, camera operators of public organizations, emergency agencies, private citizens), will be analyzed by a diagnostic decision system implementing a risk-alert scheduling strategy. This system will be able to diagnose the health state of the controlled environment and to define specialized alarm levels for each potentially interested area that will be used to alert all citizens (ubiquity) locally present (alerting locality).© 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND licenseAncona, M.; Corradi, N.; Dellacasa, A.; Delzanno, G.; Dugelay, J.; Federici, B.; Gourbesville, P.... (2014). On the Design of an Intelligent Sensor Network for Flash Flood Monitoring, Diagnosis and Management in Urban Areas. Procedia Computer Science. 32:941-946. doi:10.1016/j.procs.2014.05.515S9419463

J/psi azimuthal anisotropy relative to the reaction plane in Pb-Pb collisions at 158 GeV per nucleon

The J/$\psi$ azimuthal distribution relative to the reaction plane has been measured by the NA50 experiment in Pb-Pb collisions at 158 GeV/nucleon. Various physical mechanisms related to charmonium dissociation in the medium created in the heavy ion collision are expected to introduce an anisotropy in the azimuthal distribution of the observed J/$\psi$ mesons at SPS energies. Hence, the measurement of J/$\psi$ elliptic anisotropy, quantified by the Fourier coefficient v$_2$ of the J/$\psi$ azimuthal distribution relative to the reaction plane, is an important tool to constrain theoretical models aimed at explaining the anomalous J/$\psi$ suppression observed in Pb-Pb collisions. We present the measured J/$\psi$ yields in different bins of azimuthal angle relative to the reaction plane, as well as the resulting values of the Fourier coefficient v$_{2}$ as a function of the collision centrality and of the J/$\psi$ transverse momentum. The reaction plane has been estimated from the azimuthal distribution of the neutral transverse energy detected in an electromagnetic calorimeter. The analysis has been performed on a data sample of about 100 000 events, distributed in five centrality or p$_{\rm T}$ sub-samples. The extracted v$_{2}$ values are significantly larger than zero for non-central collisions and are seen to increase with p$_{\rm T}$.Comment: proceedings of HP08 conference corrected a typo in one equatio

Quartz fiber calorimetry

The fundamentals of a new electromagnetic and hadronic sampling calorimetry based on the detection of Cherenkov light generated in quartz optical fibers are presented. Optical fibers transport light only in a selected angular range which results in a non-obvious and absolutely unique characteristic for this new technique: showers of very narrow visible energy. In addition, the technique is characterized by radiation resistance measured in Gigarads and nanosecond signal duration. Combined, these properties make quartz fiber calorimetry a very promising technique for high intensity heavy ion experiments and for the high pseudorapidity regions of high intensity collider experiments. The results of beam tests and simulations are used to illustrate the basic properties and peculiar characteristics of this recent development