The front-end electronics for the Pierre Auger Observatory surface array

Author

Nitz, D.

Author_Institution

Phys. Dept., Michigan Technol. Univ., Houghton, MI, USA

Volume

51

Issue

3

fYear

2004

fDate

6/1/2004 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

413

Lastpage

419

Abstract

The Pierre Auger Observatory will study ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays, reaching full sensitivity for primaries with energies above 10¹⁹ eV. The southern hemisphere site observatory is currently under construction. The surface array at this site will contain 1600 water Cherenkov detector stations distributed over 3000 km². In this paper, the front-end electronics of the surface detector stations, which couple analog signal processing with digital triggering, are described. The environmental constraints, history of the development, and the final design being deployed in the field are discussed. Performance characteristics of the electronics are presented.

Keywords

Cherenkov counters; astronomical observatories; cosmic ray apparatus; nuclear electronics; primary cosmic rays; programmable logic devices; radiation detection; trigger circuits; Pierre Auger Observatory surface array; analog filters; analog signal processing; digital triggering; enviromental constraints; final design; front-end electronics; history; performance characteristics; primaries; programmable logic devices; southern hemisphere site observatory; surface detector stations; testing; ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays; water Cherenkov detector stations; Batteries; Circuits; Cosmic rays; Data acquisition; Detectors; Mesons; Microcontrollers; Observatories; Physics; Sensor arrays; Analog filters; Cerenkov detectors; cosmic rays; physics; programmable logic devices; testing; triggering;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2004.828507

Filename

1310533