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arXiv · 2109.10174

Low-latency NuMI Trigger for the CHIPS-5 Neutrino Detector

Petr Mánek·Simeon Bash·John Cesar·Greg Deuerling·Thomas Dodwell·Stefano Germani·Evan Niner·Andrew Norman·Jennifer Thomas·Josh Tingey·Neil Wilcer
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Abstract

The CHIPS R&D project aims to develop affordable large-scale water Cherenkov neutrino detectors for underwater deployment. In 2019, a 5kt prototype detector CHIPS-5 was deployed in northern Minnesota to potentially study neutrinos generated by the NuMI beam. This paper presents the dedicated low-latency triggering system for CHIPS-5 that delivers notifications of neutrino spills from the Fermilab accelerator complex to the detector with sub-nanosecond precision. Building on existing NOvA infrastructure, the time distribution system achieves this using only open-source software and conventional computing and network elements. In a time-of-flight study, the system reliably provided advance notifications $610 \pm 330\text{ ms}$ prior to neutrino spills at 96% efficiency. This permits advanced analysis in real-time as well as hardware-assisted triggering that saves data bandwidth and reduces DAQ computing load outside time windows of interest.

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Petr Mánek, Simeon Bash, John Cesar, Greg Deuerling, Thomas Dodwell, Stefano Germani, Evan Niner, Andrew Norman, Jennifer Thomas, Josh Tingey, Neil Wilcer. 2022-02-08. Low-latency NuMI Trigger for the CHIPS-5 Neutrino Detector. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2022.166513

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