The data acquisition system of the neutron time-of-flight facility n_TOF at CERN

• Published in: Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment, 2005-02, Vol.538 (1), p.692-702
• Main Authors: Abbondanno, U., Aerts, G., Álvarez, F., Álvarez, H., Andriamonje, S., Andrzejewski, J., Badurek, G., Baumann, P., Bečvář, F., Benlliure, J., Berthomieux, E., Betev, B., Calviño, F., Cano-Ott, D., Capote, R., Cennini, P., Chepel, V., Chiaveri, E., Colonna, N., Cortes, G., Cortina, D., Couture, A., Dababneh, S., David, S., Domingo-Pardo, C., Duran, I., Embid-Segura, M., Ferrant, L., Ferrari, A., Ferreira-Marques, R., Frais-Koelbl, H., Furman, W., Goncalves, I., Gonzalez-Romero, E., Goverdovski, A., Gramegna, F., Griesmayer, E., Gunsing, F., Haas, B., Haight, R., Heil, M., Herrera-Martinez, A., Jericha, E., Kadi, Y., Käppeler, F., Kerveno, M., Ketlerov, V., Koehler, P.E., Konovalov, V., Krtička, M., Leeb, H., Lindote, A., Lopes, M.I., Lozano, M., Lukic, S., Marganiec, J., Marrone, S., Mastinu, P., Mengoni, A., Milazzo, P.M., Molina-Coballes, A., Moreau, C., Mosconi, M., Neves, F., Oberhummer, H., O'Brien, S., Pancin, J., Papaevangelou, T., Paradela, C., Pavlik, A., Perlado, J.M., Plag, R., Plompen, A., Plukis, A., Poch, A., Policarpo, A., Pretel, C., Quesada, J.M., Rapp, W., Reifarth, R., Rosetti, M., Rubbia, C., Rudolf, G., Rullhusen, P., Salgado, J., Schäfer, E., Stephan, C., Tagliente, G., Tain, J.L., Tassan-Got, L., Tavora, L.M.N., Terlizzi, R., Vaz, P., Ventura, A., Villamarin-Fernandez, D., Vincente-Vincente, M., Vlachoudis, V., Wendler, H., Wiescher, M., Wisshak, K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Computer interfaces; Data acquisition; Experiments; Flash-ADC; Fysik; Física; Física nuclear; NATURAL SCIENCES; NATURVETENSKAP; Neutron time-of-flight spectroscopy; Nuclear Experiment; Nuclear physics; Physics; Pulse shape analysis; Radiació; Radiative capture; Àrees temàtiques de la UPC
• ISSN: 0168-9002; 1872-9576; 1872-9576
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2004.09.002

The n_TOF facility at CERN has been designed for the measurement of neutron capture, fission and ( n , × n ) cross-sections with high accuracy. This requires a flexible and—due to the high instantaneous neutron flux—almost dead time free data acquisition system. A scalable and versatile data solution has been designed based on 8-bit flash-ADCs with sampling rates up to 2 GHz and 8 Mbyte memory buffer. The software is written in C and C ++ and is running on PCs equipped with RedHat Linux.