New Shower Maximum Trigger for Electrons and Photons at CDF

TL;DR

This paper presents an upgraded trigger system at CDF for electrons and photons that uses shower maximum detector data to significantly reduce background noise while maintaining high signal efficiency.

Contribution

The upgrade introduces a new shower maximum trigger that improves background rejection and signal retention for electron and photon detection at CDF.

Findings

50% reduction in electron background

90% signal retention for electrons

Elimination of photon trigger background from discharges

Abstract

For the 1994 Tevatron collider run, CDF has upgraded the electron and photon trigger hardware to make use of shower position and size information from the central shower maximum detector. For electrons, the upgrade has resulted in a 50\% reduction in backgrounds while retaining approximately 90\% of the signal. The new trigger also eliminates the background to photon triggers from single-phototube discharge.