A new multianodic large area photomultiplier to be used in underwater neutrino detectors

In this article we describe the properties of a new 10-in. hemispherical photomultiplier manufactured by Hamamatsu. The prototype has a segmented photocathode and four independent amplification stages. The photomultiplier is one of the main components of a newly designed direction-sensitive optical module to be employed in large-scale underwater neutrino telescopes. The R&D activity has been co-funded by the INFN and the KM3NeT Consortium. The prototype performance fully meets with the design specifications

KM3NeT Front-end electronics upgrade: CLBv3 and PBv3

International audienceHigh efficiency, high reliability and low power consumption are the main challenges for the design of the front-end electronics of the KM3NeT neutrino telescope. The so-called Phase II of the KM3NeT project, to be started after the completion of the ongoing Phase I, is currently under design. It presents an opportunity to enhance the performance of the front-end electronics. The present article describes the main modifications under study for the KM3Net Phase II frontend electronics boards, the Central Logic Board and the Power Board. These modifications aim for a higher efficiency and reliability, and a lower power consumption and price

Wanted: Bedspacer: A short feature exploring the limits of the mystery genre using non-linear storytelling

Buboy, the newbie, is quickly accepted by his three housemates as the new bedspacer. Everything goes well until he starts hearing strange whispers and seeing omens which lead him to slowly uncover the horrors that go on inside the boarding house. While he tries to make sense of everything going on around him, he is continuously bombarded by his paranoia. Will this hinder him from realizing that he is caught in the middle of something gravely serious and far beyond his control

The Gamma and Neutron Sensor System for Rapid Dose Rate Mapping in the CLEANDEM Project

The decommissioning of nuclear installations, as well as the possible necessary accident remediations, requires the physical presence of human operators in potentially radiologically hostile environments. The number of active nuclear reactors worldwide is greater than 400, and most of them are 40 to 50 years old, thus implying that soon they will have to be dismantled. In the framework of the H2020 CLEANDEM project, a small robotic vehicle is being developed that is equipped with a series of different sensors for areas that are significantly contaminated by radiation. In this work, we describe the MiniRadMeter system, a compact low-cost sensor capable of being used to perform quick gamma and neutron radiation field mapping of environments prior to the possible start of human operations. The miniature gamma sensor is a 1 cm3 scintillator counter with moderate spectroscopic features read out by means of a 6 × 6 mm2 SiPM, whereas neutrons are detected by means of a silicon diode coupled to a layer of 6LiF and placed inside a 6 × 6 × 6 cm3 polyethylene box. The front-end and data acquisition electronics were developed based on a Raspberry Pi4 microcomputer. In this paper, the system performance and the preliminary test results are described

Streaming Readout of the CLAS12 Forward Tagger Using TriDAS and JANA2

An effort is underway to develop streaming readout data acquisition system for the CLAS12 detector in Jefferson Lab’s experimental Hall-B. Successful beam tests were performed in the spring and summer of 2020 using a 10GeV electron beam from Jefferson Lab’s CEBAF accelerator. The prototype system combined elements of the TriDAS and CODA data acquisition systems with the JANA2 analysis/reconstruction framework. This successfully merged components that included an FPGA stream source, a distributed hit processing system, and software plugins that allowed offline analysis written in C++ to be used for online event filtering. Details of the system design and performance are presented

Streaming readout for next generation electron scattering experiments

Abstract Current and future experiments at the high-intensity frontier are expected to produce an enormous amount of data that needs to be collected and stored for offline analysis. Thanks to the continuous progress in computing and networking technology, it is now possible to replace the standard ‘triggered’ data acquisition systems with a new, simplified and outperforming scheme. ‘Streaming readout’ (SRO) DAQ aims to replace the hardware-based trigger with a much more powerful and flexible software-based one, that considers the whole detector information for efficient real-time data tagging and selection. Considering the crucial role of DAQ in an experiment, validation with on-field tests is required to demonstrate SRO performance. In this paper, we report results of the on-beam validation of the Jefferson Lab SRO framework. We exposed different detectors (PbWO-based electromagnetic calorimeters and a plastic scintillator hodoscope) to the Hall-D electron-positron secondary beam and to the Hall-B production electron beam, with increasingly complex experimental conditions. By comparing the data collected with the SRO system against the traditional DAQ, we demonstrate that the SRO performs as expected. Furthermore, we provide evidence of its superiority in implementing sophisticated AI-supported algorithms for real-time data analysis and reconstruction

A new multianodic large area photomultiplier to be used in underwater neutrino detectors

In this article we describe the properties of a new 10-in. hemispherical photomultiplier manufactured by Hamamatsu. The prototype has a segmented photocathode and four independent amplification stages. The photomultiplier is one of the main components of a newly designed direction-sensitive optical module to be employed in large-scale underwater neutrino telescopes. The R&D activity has been co-funded by the INFN and the KM3NeT Consortium. The prototype performance fully meets with the design specifications