Che-leung Lee

Publication Date

1990

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Miller, Gerald D. (Professor of electrical engineering)

Degree Name

M.S. (Master of Science)

Legacy Department

Department of Electrical Engineering

LCSH

Particles (Nuclear physics); Nuclear track detectors

Abstract

This thesis describes the details of a parallel data flow trigger processor which is used in Fermilab’s E789. E789 is an experiment to study charmless two- prong decays and other low-multiplicity decays of particles containing b or c quarks. The trigger processor’s sole purpose is to determine, by postulating particle tracks, whether interesting particles exist in the current analysis period. The author has designed, implemented and tested the trigger processor. The single most significant contribution was the design of the vertex processor. The vertex processor utilizes silicon detector hits to calculate the particle origin and to verify particle track consistency with the downstream particle track. The capability to calculate particle origin did not exist in previous trigger processors. The processor consists of an upstream vertex processor and a downstream track processor. The algorithms which reconstruct the postulated particle paths and calculate particle origin are implemented via interconnected function specific hardware modules. The algorithm is directly dependent upon the organization of the modules, the specific arrangement of the inter-module cabling, on-board wire patch patterns, and where appropriate, on-board memory data. The processor provides an indication of the presence of at least one interesting particle pair in the current event by asserting Read on its Read/Skip output. The Read assertion is then used as a trigger to capture all of the event’s data for subsequent extensive off-line analysis.

Comments

Includes bibliographical references (pages [73]-77)

Extent

ix, 104 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

Download

Share

COinS