The distributed Slow Control System of the XENON100 Experiment

TL;DR

This paper details the design and implementation of a distributed, modular, and flexible Slow Control System for the XENON100 dark matter detection experiment, emphasizing its software architecture and real-time monitoring capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces a novel distributed, object-oriented control system architecture tailored for large-scale physics experiments, enhancing flexibility and remote operability.

Findings

Continuous real-time monitoring of hundreds of parameters.

Effective remote control and emergency alarm functionalities.

Successful deployment since 2008 with reliable operation.

Abstract

The XENON100 experiment, in operation at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Italy, was designed to search for evidence of dark matter interactions inside a volume of liquid xenon using a dual-phase time projection chamber. This paper describes the Slow Control System (SCS) of the experiment with emphasis on the distributed architecture as well as on its modular and expandable nature. The system software was designed according to the rules of Object-Oriented Programming and coded in Java, thus promoting code reusability and maximum flexibility during commissioning of the experiment. The SCS has been continuously monitoring the XENON100 detector since mid 2008, remotely recording hundreds of parameters on a few dozen instruments in real time, and setting emergency alarms for the most important variables.