Multichannel Data Acquisition System for Scintillation Detectors of the Emma Experiment

TL;DR

This paper describes a multichannel data acquisition system designed for the EMMA experiment, which studies cosmic rays using a large array of scintillation detectors located deep underground.

Contribution

It introduces a novel multichannel data acquisition system tailored for the EMMA cosmic ray experiment with detailed electronic and system architecture.

Findings

System supports 1536 channels across 96 detectors.

Enables measurement of particle time of flight and detector coordinates.

Integrates electronics, trigger, and VME components for data collection.

Abstract

The multichannel data acquisition system is intended to be used in the EMMA experiment studying cosmic rays. The array will be in the Pihasalmi mine (central Finland) at a depth of about 85 m. The scintillator counters (SC-1) of the array are cast plastic scintillators with a wavelength of each SC-1 detector is 12.2{\times}12.2{\times}3.0 cm^3. 16 SC-1 detectors are placed in the metal case of 50.0{\times}50.0{\times}13.0 cm^3 dimension. Each case, called SC-16 detector, contains electronics of preliminary processing of signals and operating mode stabilization. The whole of the array will contain 96 detectors SC-16. It will make 1536 channels placed in three planes (48+24+24 detectors). The array will allow us to measure the time of flight of particles between SC-16 detectors and the coordinates of SC-1 fired detectors. This paper presents the function diagram of data acquisition system that includes electronic of detectors, the hodoscope pulse channels, the trigger block and VME blocks.