The Zero Degree Calorimeter Readout Card for ALICE

Author

Siddhanta, S. ; Cicalo, C. ; De Falco, A. ; Floris, M. ; Incani, E. ; Masoni, A. ; Puddu, G. ; Serci, S. ; Uras, A. ; Usai, G. ; Arnaldi, R. ; Bianchi, L. ; Bossu, F. ; Chiavassa, E. ; De Marco, N. ; Ferretti, A. ; Gagliardi, M. ; Gallio, M. ; Luparello,

Author_Institution

Dept. of Phys., Univ. of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy

fYear

2010

fDate

Oct. 30 2010-Nov. 6 2010

Firstpage

762

Lastpage

768

Abstract

ALICE 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, a VME Processor, Discriminators, a ZDC Trigger Card, scalers, QDCs and TDCs. The system was successfully tested during the 2009 ALICE data taking and is currently operational at the LHC. This paper describes the ZDC Readout Card which forms an important part of the ZDC readout system.

Keywords

calorimeters; discriminators; nuclear electronics; particle calorimetry; readout electronics; trigger circuits; ALICE; CERN LHC; QDC; TDC; VME processor; VME system; ZDC readout card; ZDC readout system; ZDC trigger card; beauty quark; charm quark; discriminators; extreme energy densities; mesons; quark gluon plasma; spectator nucleons; strongly interacting matter; zero degree calorimeters; Calibration; Electromagnetics; Large Hadron Collider; Logic gates; Neutrons; Physics; Zinc;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record (NSS/MIC), 2010 IEEE

Conference_Location

Knoxville, TN

ISSN

1095-7863

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-9106-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NSSMIC.2010.5873861

Filename

5873861