The CMS ECAL laser monitoring system

Light monitoring will play a crucial role in maintaining the energy resolution of the CMS lead tungstate crystal electromagnetic calorimeter (ECAL) in situ at LHC. Since 2001, a laser based monitoring system has been used in the CMS ECAL beam tests at CERN. While the stability of the laser pulse energy and width, measured in 24 hours, is at a level of 3%, a long term degradation of both the laser pulse energy and the width were observed, as well as a drift of the laser pulse center timing at 2 ns/day. This degradation and drift, caused by the natural aging of the DC Kr lamp, would affect respectively the monitoring precision and the synchronization between the laser pulse and the ECAL ADC clock. This paper presents a design and implementation of a software feedback control which stabilizes the laser pulse energy, width and timing. With the software feedback implemented, a stability of the laser pulse energy and width at 3% level and a pulse timing jitter at 2 ns were observed in laser runs lasted for more than 3 months. The 0.5% energy resolution of the CMS PbWO₄ crystal ECAL is maintained after applying the laser monitoring corrections in a beam irradiation test.