Neural second-level trigger system based on calorimetry Original Research Article

A second-level triggering system based on calorimetry is analyzed using neural networks. Calorimeter data in a LHC environment is obtained with Monte Carlo simulations and an algorithm for the first-level trigger operation is applied. The surviving events are then available as a 20×20 matrix information corresponding to the calorimeter towers in the region of interest. The dominant background for triggering on electrons is assumed to consist of QCD jets which passed the first-level trigger condition. The main features of the calorimeter are extracted. Matrix information, shower deposition in concentric rings and tail weighting procedures are studied. The processed information is sent to a fully connected backpropagation neural network. In this analysis we also consider pileup effects of an average of 20 minimum bias events. The neural network based system achieved up to 99% electron efficiency with less than 9% of jets being misclassified as electrons. Implementation on digital signal processors is suggested.