CERN Accelerating science

Article
Title	The data acquisition system of the neutron time-of-flight facility nTOF at CERN
Author(s)	Abbondanno, U ; Aerts, G ; Alvarez, F ; Alvarez, H ; Andriamonje, Samuel A ; Andrzejewski, J ; Badurek, G ; Baumann, P ; Becvar, F ; Benlliure, J ; Berthomieux, E ; Betev, B ; Calviño, F ; Cano-Ott, D ; Capote, R ; Cennini, P ; Chepel, V Yu ; Chiaveri, Enrico ; Colonna, N ; Cortés, G ; Cortina-Gil, D ; Couture, A ; Cox, J ; Dababneh, S ; David, S ; Dolfini, R ; Domingo-Pardo, C ; Durán, I ; Embid-Segura, M ; Ferrant, L ; Ferrari, A ; Ferreira-Marques, R ; Frais-Kölbl, H ; Furman, W ; Gonçalves, I ; González-Romero, E M ; Goverdovski, A A (Institute of Physics and Power Engineering, Obninsk, Russia) ; Gramegna, F ; Griesmayer, E ; Gunsing, F ; Haas, B ; Haight, R ; Heil, M ; Herrera-Martínez, A ; Isaev, S ; Jericha, E ; Kadi, Y ; Käppeler, F K ; Kerveno, M ; Ketlerov, V ; Köhler, P E ; Konovalov, V ; Krticka, M ; Leeb, H ; Lindote, A ; Lopes, M I ; Lozano, M ; Lukic, S ; Marganiec, J ; Marrone, S ; Martínez-Val, J M ; Mastinu, P ; Mengoni, A ; Milazzo, P M ; Molina-Coballes, A ; Moreau, C ; Mosconi, M ; Neves, F ; Oberhummer, Heinz ; O'Brien, S ; Pancin, J ; Papaevangelou, T ; Paradela, C ; Pavlik, A ; Pavlopoulos, P ; Perlado, J M ; Perrot, L ; Peskov, Vladimir ; Plag, R ; Plompen, A ; Plukis, A ; Poch, A ; Policarpo, Armando ; Pretel, C ; Quesada, J M ; Rapp, W ; Rauscher, T ; Reifarth, R ; Rosetti, M ; Rubbia, Carlo ; Rudolf, G ; Rullhusen, P ; Salgado, V ; Schäfer, E ; Soares, J C ; Stephanq, C ; Tagliente, G ; Taín, J L ; Tassan-Got, L ; Tavora, L M N ; Terlizzi, R ; Vannini, G ; Vaz, P ; Ventura, A ; Villamarín-Fernández, D ; Vincente-Vincente, M ; Vlachoudis, V ; Voss, F ; Wendler, H ; Wiescher, M ; Wisshak, K
Affiliation	(Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH Institut Fur Kernphysik, Eggenstein, Leopaldhafen 76344, Germany)
Publication	2005
In:	Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., A 538 (2005) 692-702
DOI	10.1016/j.nima.2004.09.002
Subject category	Detectors and Experimental Techniques
Accelerator/Facility, Experiment	CERN PS ; nTOF
Abstract	The n_TOF facility at CERN has been designed for the measurement of neutron capture, fission and (n, multiplied by n) cross-sections with high accuracy. This requires a flexible and - due to the high instantaneous neutron flux - almost dead time free data acquisition system. A scalable and versatile data solution has been designed based on 8-bit flash-ADCs with sampling rates up to 2 GHz and 8 Mbyte memory buffer. The software is written in C and C++ and is running on PCs equipped with RedHat Linux.