Data acquisition system for the MuLan muon lifetime experiment

TL;DR

The paper details a data acquisition system designed for the MuLan muon lifetime experiment, capable of handling high decay rates and data throughput with robust control, diagnostics, and monitoring features.

Contribution

It introduces a novel high-rate data acquisition system with a parallel processing architecture and custom monitoring tools for muon lifetime measurements.

Findings

Achieved muon decay recording at 1 MHz rate

Supported data acquisition at 60 MB/sec

Implemented a versatile control and diagnostics scheme

Abstract

We describe the data acquisition system for the MuLan muon lifetime experiment at Paul Scherrer Institute. The system was designed to record muon decays at rates up to 1 MHz and acquire data at rates up to 60 MB/sec. The system employed a parallel network of dual-processor machines and repeating acquisition cycles of deadtime-free time segments in order to reach the design goals. The system incorporated a versatile scheme for control and diagnostics and a custom web interface for monitoring experimental conditions.