학술논문

The readout system for the ALICE Zero Degree Calorimeters
Document Type
Conference
Source
2010 17th IEEE-NPSS Real Time Conference Real Time Conference (RT), 2010 17th IEEE-NPSS. :1-5 May, 2010
Subject
Engineered Materials, Dielectrics and Plasmas
Nuclear Engineering
Physics
Large Hadron Collider
Timing
Logic gates
Control systems
Data acquisition
Process control
Language
Abstract
ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) at the CERN LHC will investigate the physics of strongly interacting matter at extreme energy densities where the formation of the Quark Gluon Plasma is expected. Its properties can be studied from observations like the production of mesons with charm and beauty quarks. These observations have to be studied as a function of energy density which is determined by the centrality of collisions. The energy carried by the spectator nucleons, related to the centrality, is measured by the Zero Degree Calorimeters (ZDC). The ZDC readout consists of a VME system with a ZDC readout card (ZRC), a VME Processor, Discriminators, a ZDC Trigger Card (ZTC), scalers, QDCs and TDCs. The system was successfully tested during the 2009 data taking and is currently operational at the LHC. This paper describes the readout system of the ZDC.