Belver, D., Cabanelas, P., Castro, E., Garzon, J. A., Gil, A., Gonzalez-Diaz, D., et al. (2010). Performance of the Low-Jitter High-Gain/Bandwidth Front-End Electronics of the HADES tRPC Wall. IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci., 57(5), 2848–2856.
Abstract: A front-end electronics (FEE) chain for accurate time measurements has been developed for the new Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC)-based Time-of-Flight (TOF) wall of the High Acceptance Di-Electron Spectrometer (HADES). The wall covers an area of around 8 m(2) divided in 6 sectors. In total, 1122 4-gap timing RPC cells are read-out by 2244 time and charge sensitive channels. The FEE chain consists of 2 custom-made boards: a 4-channel Daughter BOard(DBO) and a 32-channel MotherBOard (MBO). The DBO uses a fast 2 GHz amplifier feeding a dual high-speed discriminator. The time and charge information are encoded, respectively, in the leading edge and the width of an LVDS signal. Each MBO houses up to 8 DBOs providing them regulated voltage supply, threshold values via DACs, test signals and, additionally, routing out a signal proportional to the channel multiplicity needed for a 1st level trigger decision. The MBO delivers LVDS signals to a multi-purpose Trigger Readout Board (TRB) for data acquisition. The FEE allows achieving a system resolution around 75 ps fulfilling comfortably the requirements of the HADES upgrade [1]. The commissioning of the whole RPC wall is finished and the 6 sectors are already mounted in their final position in the HADES spectrometer and ready to take data during the beam-times foreseen for 2010.
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Gil, A., Blanco, A., Castro, E., Diaz, J., Garzon, J. A., Gonzalez-Diaz, D., et al. (2012). The slow control system of the HADES RPC wall. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A, 661, S118–S120.
Abstract: The control and monitoring system for the new HADES RPC time of flight wall installed at GSI Helmholtzzentrum fur Schwerionenforschung GmbH (Darmstadt, Germany), is described. The slow control system controls/monitors about 6000 variables from different physical devices via a distributed architecture, which uses intensively the 1-wire (R) bus. The software implementation is based on the Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) software tool kit providing low cost, reliability and adaptability without requiring large hardware resources. The control and monitoring system attends five different subsystems: front-end electronics, low voltage, high voltage, gases, and detector. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Argyropoulos, T., Catalan-Lasheras, N., Grudiev, A., Mcmonagle, G., Rodriguez-Castro, E., Syrachev, I., et al. (2018). Design, fabrication, and high-gradient testing of an X-band, traveling-wave accelerating structure milled from copper halves. Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams, 21(6), 061001–11pp.
Abstract: A prototype 11.994 GHz, traveling-wave accelerating structure for the Compact Linear Collider has been built, using the novel technique of assembling the structure from milled halves. The use of milled halves has many advantages when compared to a structure made from individual disks. These include the potential for a reduction in cost, because there are fewer parts, as well as a greater freedom in choice of joining technology because there are no rf currents across the halves' joint. Here we present the rf design and fabrication of the prototype structure, followed by the results of the high-power test and post-test surface analysis. During high-power testing the structure reached an unloaded gradient of 100 MV/m at a rf breakdown rate of less than 1.5 x 10(-5) breakdowns/pulse/m with a 200 ns pulse. This structure has been designed for the CLIC testing program but construction from halves can be advantageous in a wide variety of applications.
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Woolley, B., Burt, G., Dexter, A. C., Peacock, R., Millar, W. L., Catalan Lasheras, N., et al. (2020). High-gradient behavior of a dipole-mode rf structure. Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams, 23(12), 122002–11pp.
Abstract: A normal-conducting, X-band traveling wave structure operating in the dipole mode has been systematically high-gradient tested to gain insight into the maximum possible gradients in these types of structure. Measured structure conditioning, breakdown behavior, and achieved surface fields are reported as well as a postmortem analysis of the breakdown position and a scanning electron microscope analysis of the high-field surfaces. The results of these measurements are then compared to high-gradient results from monopole-mode cavities. Scaled to a breakdown rate of 10(-6), the cavities were found to operate at a peak electric field of 154 MV/m and a peak modified Poynting vector S-c of 5.48 MW/mm(2). The study provides important input for the further development of dipole-mode cavities for use in the Compact Linear Collider as a crab cavity and dipole-mode cavities for use in x-ray free-electron lasers as well as for studies of the fundamental processes in vacuum arcs. Of particular relevance are the unique field patterns in dipole cavities compared to monopole cavities, where the electric and magnetic fields peak in orthogonal planes, which allow the separation of the role of electric and magnetic fields in breakdown via postmortem damage observation. The azimuthal variation of breakdown crater density is measured and is fitted to sinusoidal functions. The best fit is a power law fit of exponent 6. This is significant, as it shows how breakdown probability varies over a surface area with a varying electric field after conditioning to a given peak field.
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