A Multi-Channel Radiation-Tolerant, Low-Power, High-Speed and Resolution Analog-to-Digital Converter for Nuclear Physics Detectors
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Gui, Ping↗
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Organic Glass Based Plastic Scintillators for Nuclear Physics Detectors
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Carlson, Joseph↗
Pixel Array Germanium Detectors for Nuclear Physics (Final Technical Report)
The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Physics supports the development and maintenance of germanium gamma-ray detector arrays at national laboratories and universities. Germanium gamma-ray detectors provide state-of-the-art gamma-ray energy resolution, making them critical for gamma-ray and x-ray spectroscopy in Nuclear Physics. Furthermore, detector segmentation and charge-signal waveform processing enables 3-dimensional (3D) measurement of gamma-ray interaction locations needed for the highest-fidelity Nuclear Physics experiments. Attaining and maintaining excellent gamma-ray energy resolution depends largely on the naturally excellent charge-collection properties of germanium crystals. However, the optimal method for achieving the best practical 3D spatial resolution within the detector volume at high counting rates is less clear.
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
TTDAQ: A Continuous Flow, Timing and Trigger DAQ System
Final Scientific/Technical Report for DOE Award DE-SC0019581, “TTDAQ: A Continuous Flow, Timing and Trigger DAQ System.” The report summarizes Telluric Labs’ Phase II STTR work developing silicon-photonic building blocks for a software-defined, continuous-flow, trigger-less data acquisition system for next-generation high-energy and nuclear-physics detectors. The project focused on radiation-hard photonic integrated circuits, remote optical illumination, dense wavelength-division multiplexing, and a differential microring-resonator transceiver architecture designed to improve high-speed optical link stability and bandwidth. The report describes project objectives, technical accomplishments, AIM Photonics tape-outs, bench characterization, radiation-hardness testing, deferred integration work, and potential applications beyond physics readout.
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
NCSP – AWE Collaboration [Slides]
Several points of collaboration between NCSP and AWE are noted, including the CIDAAS IS589 installation plan, CIDAAS testing, nuclear verification and detector physics, nuclear material control and nuclear security, and hands on criticality safety training.
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
Reflectivity and PDE of VUV4 Hamamatsu SiPMs in liquid xenon
Considering reflective properties of materials and photodetection efficiency (PDE) of photodetectors is important for optimizing energy resolution and sensitivity of the next generation neutrinoless double beta decay, direct detection dark matter, and neutrino oscillation experiments that will use noble liquid gases, such as nEXO, DARWIN, DarkSide-20k, and DUNE . Little information is currently available about reflectivity and PDE in liquid noble gases, because such measurements are difficult to conduct in a cryogenic environment and at short enough wavelengths. Here we report a measurement of specular reflectivity and relative PDE of Hamamatsu VUV4 silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) with 50 μ m micro-cells conducted with xenon scintillation light ( ~ 175 nm) in liquid xenon. The specular reflectivity at 15 o incidence of three samples of VUV4 SiPMs is found to be 30.4 ± 1.4%, 28.6 ± 1.3%, and 28.0 ± 1.3%, respectively. The PDE at normal incidence differs by ± 8% (standard deviation) among the three devices. The angular dependence of the reflectivity and PDE was further measured for one of the SiPMs. Both the reflectivity and PDE decrease as the angle of incidence increases. This is the first measurement of an angular dependence of PDE and reflectivity of a SiPM in liquid xenon.
47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
Improved eV-scale sterile-neutrino constraints from the second KATRIN measurement campaign
Not Available
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
Physics Opportunities in the ORNL Spallation Neutron Source Second Target Station Era
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) First Target Station (FTS), used by the COHERENT experiment, provides an intense and extremely high-quality source of pulsed stopped-pion neutrinos, with energies up to about 50 MeV. Upgrades to the SNS are planned, including a Second Target Station (STS), which will approximately double the expected neutrino flux while maintaining quality similar to the FTS source. Furthermore, additional space for ten-tonne scale detectors may be available. We describe here exciting opportunities for neutrino physics, other particle and nuclear physics, and detector development using the FTS and STS neutrino sources.
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
R&D Towards CUPID, a Tonne-Scale Bolometric 0νββ Experiment (Collaborative Proposal)
As endorsed by the 2015 Long Range Plan for Nuclear Science, development of the ton-scale 0νββ experiment with the sensitivity to the effective neutrino mass at the level of 15 meV is one of the highest priorities for the nuclear physics. Bolometric detector based on CUORE design is very well matched to this goal. We have assembled a Collaboration to develop CUPID, a next-generation bolometric 0νββ detector based on CUORE experience and design, but improving upon CUORE sensitivity by more than an order of magnitude.
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
White Rabbit Time Synchronization for Radiation Detector Readout Electronics
As radiation detector arrays in nuclear physics applications become larger and physically more separated, the time synchronization and trigger distribution between many channels of detector readout electronics become more challenging. Clocks and triggers are traditionally distributed through dedicated cabling, but newer methods such as the IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol and White Rabbit allow clock synchronization through the exchange of timing messages over Ethernet. Consequently, we report here the use of White Rabbit in a new detector readout module, the Pixie-Net XL. Herein, the White Rabbit core, data capture from multiple digitizing channels, and subsequent pulse processing for pulse height and constant fraction timing are implemented in a Kintex 7 FPGA. The detector data records include White Rabbit time stamps and are transmitted to storage through the White Rabbit core's gigabit Ethernet data path or a slower diagnostic/control link using an embedded Zynq processor. The performance is characterized by time-of-flight style measurements and by time correlation of high energy background events from cosmic showers in detectors separated by longer distances. Software for the Zynq processor can implement "software triggering", for example to limit recording of data to events where a minimum number of channels from multiple modules detect radiation at the same time.
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
Intelligent Experiments Through Real-time AI: Fast Data Processing and Autonomous Detector Control for sPHENIX and Future EIC Detectors (Final Report)
The overall vision of this project was to integrate real-time artificial intelligence (AI) directly into the data acquisition and detector-control systems of nuclear physics experiments, including both fast online event selection and an autonomous detector-control feedback loop. The work carried out under the award focused on the fast online event-selection half of that vision: the efficient recording of low-momentum heavy-flavor (HF) hadron decays in proton-proton collisions at the sPHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)—an observable that requires fast tracking and topological trigger selection not previously demonstrated at RHIC, and that is essential for QCD studies at future facilities such as the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). The autonomous detector-control (GPU-based feedback) component named in the project title remained a design concept and was not implemented under this award. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) group led the offline simulation and data processing needed to train the machine-learning (ML) models, the translation of trained models to Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) firmware using the hls4ml framework, and the physics validation of heavy-flavor reconstruction. Over the award period, the team developed and hardware-tested the principal components of an AI-based heavy-flavor trigger on simulated and recorded sPHENIX tracker data: a software Bipartite Graph Attention Network (BiGAT) trigger model reaching > 95% signal efficiency at 99% background rejection; an FPGA-native hit clusterizer matching the offline clustering; smaller networks synthesized to FPGA within the required sub-10 µs latency; and an assembled decoder–clusterizer–inference firmware chain exercised on the FELIX readout board. A complete, fully integrated hardware demonstrator was not finished within the award period. This report documents the project goals, the MIT group’s contributions, the technical accomplishments, and the outlook toward applications at the future EIC ePIC detector.
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
SPLENDAQ: A Detector-Agnostic Data Acquisition System for Small-Scale Physics Experiments
Many scientific applications from rare-event searches to condensed matter system characterization to high-rate nuclear experiments require time-domain triggering on a raw stream of data, where the triggering is generally threshold-based or randomly acquired. When carrying out detector R &D, there is a need for a general data acquisition (DAQ) system to quickly and efficiently process such data. In the SPLENDOR collaboration, we are developing the Python-based SPLENDAQ package for this exact purpose—it offers two main features for offline analysis of continuous data: a threshold triggering algorithm based on the time-domain optimal filter formalism and an algorithm for randomly choosing nonoverlapping segments for noise measurements. Further, combined with the commercially available Moku platform, developed by Liquid Instruments, we have a full pipeline of event building off raw data with minimal setup. Here, we review the underlying principles of this detector-agnostic DAQ package and give concrete examples of its utility in various applications.
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
Time projection chamber for GADGET II
The established Gaseous Detector with Germanium Tagging (GADGET) detection system is used to measure weak, low-energy 𝛽-delayed proton decays. It consists of the Gaseous Proton Detector equipped with a MICROMEGAS (MM) readout to detect protons and other charged particles calorimetrically, surrounded by the Segmented Germanium Array (SeGA) for high-resolution detection of prompt 𝛾 rays. To upgrade GADGET's Proton Detector to operate as a compact time projection chamber (TPC) for the detection, three-dimensional imaging and identification of low-energy 𝛽-delayed single- and multiparticle emissions mainly of interest to astrophysical studies. A new high granularity MM board with 1024 pads has been designed, fabricated, installed, and tested. A high-density data acquisition system based on generic electronics for TPCs (GET) has been installed and optimized to record and process the gas avalanche signals collected on the readout pads. The TPC's performance has been tested using a 220 Rn 𝛼-particle source and cosmic-ray muons. In addition, decay events in the TPC have been simulated by adapting the attpcroot data analysis framework. Furthermore, a novel application of two-dimensional convolutional neural networks for GADGET II event classification is introduced. The optimization of data throughput is also addressed. The GADGET II TPC is capable of detecting and identifying 𝛼 particles as well as measuring their track direction, range, and energy. The extracted energy resolution of the GADGET II TPC using P10 gas is about 5.4% at 6.288 MeV ( 220 Rn 𝛼 events), computed using charge integration. Based on a systematic simulation study, we estimated the detection efficiency of the GADGET II TPC for protons and 𝛼 particles, respectively. It has also been demonstrated that the GADGET II TPC is capable of tracking minimum-ionizing particles (i.e., cosmic-ray muons). From these measurements, the electron drift velocity was measured under typical operating conditions. In addition to being one of the first generation of micropattern gaseous detectors (MPGDs) to utilize a resistive anode applied to low-energy nuclear physics, the GADGET II TPC will also be the first TPC surrounded by a high-efficiency array of high-purity germanium 𝛾-ray detectors. As a result, the TPC of GADGET II has been designed, fabricated, and tested and is ready for operation at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams for radioactive-beam-line experiments.
73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
Radiation campaign of HPK prototype LGAD sensors for the High-Granularity Timing Detector (HGTD)
In this work, we report on the results of a radiation campaign with neutrons and protons of Low Gain Avalanche Detectors (LGAD) produced by Hamamatsu (HPK) as prototypes for the High-Granularity Timing Detector (HGTD) in ATLAS. Sensors with an active thickness of were irradiated in steps of roughly 2 up to a fluence of 3. As a function of the fluence, the collected charge and time resolution of the irradiated sensors will be reported for operation at °C.
47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
Characterization and pulse-shape discrimination of a multi-stacked structure of ZnS: Ag/PMMA for fast-neutron detection in high-flux environments
The Micro-Layered Fast Neutron Detector (MLFD) is a proton-recoil scintillator that incorporates the basic concept of a Hornyak button detector with an improved design using a layered structure of ZnS:Ag and PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate). The MLFD was predicted to have low sensitivity to gamma rays, hence pulse shape discrimination was performed to determine the gamma-ray contribution. Presented in this paper are the pulse-shape discrimination characteristics of the MLFD. Additionally, the charge integration technique was employed to discriminate between the neutrons and gamma rays using a fast digitzer. The MLFD was found to exhibit excellent neutron/gamma-ray discrimination, with the highest Figure-of-Merit (FoM) being 4.56. With PSD, the neutron signal is distinct from gamma-ray, Ĉerenkov and electronic noise signals. This clear separation was achieved due to the large differences in decay times of the neutron and gamma-ray-induced pulses in the ZnS:Ag phosphor. The MLFD can be employed in high gamma-ray exposure fields, up to at least 1287.7 mR/hr, without appreciable degradation in PSD performance.
47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
Design of detectors at the electron ion collider with artificial intelligence
Abstract Artificial Intelligence (AI) for design is a relatively new but active area of research across many disciplines. Surprisingly when it comes to designing detectors with AI this is an area at its infancy. The electron ion collider is the ultimate machine to study the strong force. The EIC is a large-scale experiment with an integrated detector that extends for about ±35 meters to include the central, far-forward, and far-backward regions. The design of the central detector is made by multiple sub-detectors, each in principle characterized by a multidimensional design space and multiple design criteria also called objectives. Simulations with Geant4 are typically compute intensive, and the optimization of the detector design may include non-differentiable terms as well as noisy objectives. In this context, AI can offer state of the art solutions to solve complex combinatorial problems in an efficient way. In particular, one of the proto-collaborations, ECCE, has explored during the detector proposal the possibility of using multi-objective optimization to design the tracking system of the EIC detector. This document provides an overview of these techniques and recent progress made during the EIC detector proposal. Future high energy nuclear physics experiments can leverage AI-based strategies to design more efficient detectors by optimizing their performance driven by physics criteria and minimizing costs for their realization.
Instruments & Instrumentation↗
Track Reconstruction using Graph Neural Networks in the EMPHATIC Experiment
Track reconstruction is essential for extracting physics observables from detector data in high-energy and nuclear physics experiments. In this work, we investigate the use of graph neural networks (GNNs) to reconstruct particle momentum in the EMPHATIC experiment using simulated data. The model takes raw hit information from the silicon strip detectors (SSDs) as input and is trained to predict momentum components and the scattering angle of the particle. We describe the GNN architecture, training procedure, and performance metrics, and present results showing improved resolution in momentum reconstruction. These results demonstrate the potential of GNN-based approaches in track reconstruction tasks within complex detector environments like EMPHATIC.
Bhattarai, Aayush [Notre Dame U.]↗
Layout and performance of HPK prototype LGAD sensors for the High-Granularity Timing Detector
The High-Granularity Timing Detector is a detector proposed for the ATLAS Phase II upgrade. The detector, based on the Low-Gain Avalanche Detector (LGAD) technology, will cover the pseudo-rapidity region of 2.4 < |n| < 4.0 with two end caps on each side and a total area of 6.4 m 2 . The timing performance can be improved by implanting an internal gain layer that can produce signals with a fast rising edge. It significantly improves the signal-to-noise ratio. The required average timing resolution per track for a minimum ionizing particle is 30 ps at the start and 50 ps at the end of the HL-LHC operation. This is achieved with several layers of LGAD. The innermost region of the detector would accumulate a 1MeV neutron-equivalent fluence up to 2.5 10 15 n eq /cm 2 including a safety factor of 1.5 before being replaced during the scheduled shutdowns. The addition of this new detector is expected to play an important role in the mitigation of high pile-ups at the HL-LHC. The layout and performance of the various versions of LGAD prototypes produced by Hamamatsu (HPK) have been studied by the ATLAS Collaboration. The breakdown voltages, depletion voltages, inter-pad gaps, collected charge as well as the time resolution have been measured and the production yield of large size sensors has been evaluated.
47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗