Mitigating Deadtime in Distributed Optical Arrays Using A Liveness-Aware Trigger Approach for High-Energy Neutrino Detection

Abstract

Large-scale neutrino observatories operate under unavoidable detector deadtime arising from photomultiplier saturation, digitizer limits, and front-end readout constraints. Conventional coincidence-based trigger logic implicitly assumes continuous sensor availability and therefore suffers systematic efficiency loss when channels become temporarily non-live. This work presents the design of a liveness-aware trigger architecture targeting low-latency FPGA deployment in distributed optical arrays. We introduce a recursive Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) update law implemented as a fully synthesizable pipeline that constructs a continuity-preserving effective observable at each sensor node. Rather than collapsing during non-liveness intervals, the observable decays smoothly while retaining phase and amplitude information relevant for network-level coherence estimation. By explicitly separating continuous measurement construction from discrete trigger decision logic, the proposed architecture enables graceful degradation under partial channel non-liveness. Simulation results demonstrate sustained event recovery efficiency in regimes of elevated deadtime probability, where conventional coincidence logic degrades substantially.

23 pages, 11 figures. Oral presentation in Track 2: Online & Real-Time Computing at CHEP 2026. Revised manuscript prepared for the CHEP 2026 proceedings and submission to EPJ Web of Conferences. Updated title, author affiliations, formatting, figure layout, sampling-rate description, and calibration statistics; main results and conclusions remain unchanged