Design and commissioning of a timestamp-based data acquisition system for the DRAGON recoil mass separator

Abstract

The DRAGON recoil mass separator at TRIUMF exists to study radiative proton and alpha capture reactions, which are important in a variety of astrophysical scenarios. DRAGON experiments require a data acquisition system that can be triggered on either reaction product ($\gamma$ ray or heavy ion), with the additional requirement of being able to promptly recognize coincidence events in an online environment. To this end, we have designed and implemented a new data acquisition system for DRAGON which consists of two independently triggered readouts. Events from both systems are recorded with timestamps from a $20$ MHz clock that are used to tag coincidences in the earliest possible stage of the data analysis. Here we report on the design, implementation, and commissioning of the new DRAGON data acquisition system, including the hardware, trigger logic, coincidence reconstruction algorithm, and live time considerations. We also discuss the results of an experiment commissioning the new system, which measured the strength of the $E_{\text{c}.\text{m}.}=1113$ keV resonance in the ${}^{20}$Ne${\left(p,\gamma \right)}^{21}$Na radiative proton capture reaction.

arXiv comment11 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in EPJ A "tools for experiment and theory"

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• First inverse kinematics study of the ${}^{22}$Ne$(p,\gamma {)}^{23}$Na reaction and its role in AGB star and classical nova nucleosynthesis
• New measurement of the $E_{c.m.}=323$ keV resonance in the ${}^{19}$F$($p,γ$)$^{20}$Ne reaction
• Direct Measurement of Astrophysically Important Resonances in ${}^{38}\mathrm{K}(p,\gamma ){}^{39}\mathrm{Ca}$
• Constraints on key ${}^{17}$O($\alpha ,\gamma$)${}^{21}$Ne resonances and impact on the weak s-process
• Beyond the acceptance limit of DRAGON: the case of the ${}^6\mathrm{Li}(\alpha ,\gamma {)}^{10}\mathrm{B}$ reaction
• First In-Beam Demonstration of a hybrid LaBr3/CeBr3/BGO array to measure radiative capture resonance energies in an extended gas target using a novel time of flight technique