White Rabbit Time Synchronization for Radiation Detector Readout Electronics
Wolfgang Hennig, Shawn Hoover

TL;DR
This paper demonstrates the integration of White Rabbit time synchronization into a radiation detector readout system, enabling precise timing and trigger distribution over Ethernet for large, separated detector arrays.
Contribution
It introduces a new detector readout module, Pixie-Net XL, utilizing White Rabbit for synchronized data acquisition and processing in nuclear physics applications.
Findings
White Rabbit achieves sub-nanosecond synchronization accuracy.
The system effectively correlates cosmic-ray events over long distances.
The FPGA implementation supports real-time pulse processing and software triggering.
Abstract
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. 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…
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