The PDOZ dosimeter is a R&D project of BEAMIDE srl in collaboration with the National Institute of Nuclear Physics and University of Perugia. This personal electronic dosimeter has the aim to detect, discriminate and measure the dose and dose rate delivered by gamma rays, beta particles and neutrons in real time in mixed radiation fields of unknown source. Several simulations, implemented with the Geant4 toolkit, are used to optimize the geometry and the materials employed. In the end, the first tests to compare the simulation results with the experimental data have been performed.

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) is a well known material for its radiation resistance and for the possibility of deposition on flexible substrates like Polyimide (PI), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) or polyethylene naphthalate (PEN). Due to the properties of a-Si:H its usage for dosimetry, beam monitoring for particle physics and nuclear medicine, as well as, radiation flux measurement for space applications and neutron flux measurement can be foreseen. In this paper the dosimetric X-ray response of p-i-n diodes deposited on Polyimide will be studied. In particular we will study the linearity of the photocurrent response to X-rays versus dose-rate from which we will extract the dosimetric sensitivity at various bias voltages. We will repeat this study for devices having two different areas (2 mm x 2 mm and 5 mm x 5 mm) also a measurement of stability of X-ray response versus time will be shown.

Hydrogenated amorphous silicon is a well known detector material for its radiation resistance. This study concern 10 µm thickness, p-i-n and charge selective contacts planar diode detectors which were irradiated with neutrons at two fluence values: 1016 neq/cm2 and 5 x 1016 neq/cm2. In order to evaluate their radiation resistance, detector leakage current and response to X-ray photons have been measured. The effect of annealing for performance recovery at 100°C for 12 and 24 hours has also been studied. The results for the 1016 neq/cm2 irradiation show a factor 2 increase in leakage current that is completely recovered after annealing for p-i-n devices while charge selective contacts devices show an overall decrease of the leakage current at the end of the annealing process compared to the measurement before the irradiation. X-ray dosimetric sensitivity degrades, for this fluence, at the end of irradiation but partially recovers for charge selective contacts devices and increases for p-i-n devices at the end of the annealing process. Concerning the 5 x 1016 neq/cm2 irradiation test (for p-i-n structures only), due to the activation occurred during the irradiation phase, the results were taken after 146 days of storage around 0° C when a self-annealing effect may have occurred. Nevertheless the results shows a degradation in leakage current and x-ray sensitivity which changes very little after annealing.

Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon (a-Si:H) is a well known material for its intrinsic radiation hardness and is primarily utilized in solar cells as well as for particle detection and dosimetry. Planar p-i-n diode detectors are fabricated entirely by means of intrinsic and doped PECVD of a mixture of Silane (SiH 4 ) and molecular hydrogen. In order to develop 3D detector geometries using a-Si:H, two options for the junction fabrication have been considered: ion implantation and charge selective contacts through atomic layer deposition. In order to test the functionality of the charge selective contact electrodes, planar detectors have been fabricated utilizing this technique. In this paper, we provide a general overview of the 3D fabrication project followed by the results of leakage current measurements and X-ray dosimetric tests performed on planar diodes containing charge selective contacts to investigate the feasibility of the charge selective contact methodology for integration with the proposed 3D detector architectures.

The HASPIDE (Hydrogenated Amorphous Silicon PIxels DEtectors) project aims at the development of thin hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) detectors on flexible substrates (mostly Polyimide) for beam monitoring, neutron detection and space applications. Since a-Si:H is a material with superior radiation hardness, the benefit for the above-mentioned applications can be appreciated mostly in radiation harsh environments. Furthermore, the possibility to deposit this material on flexible substrates like Polyimide (PI), polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) or polyethylene terephthalate (PET) facilitates the usage of these detectors in medical dosimetry, beam flux and beam profile measurements. Particularly interesting is its use when positioned directly on the flange of the vacuum-to-air separation interface in a beam line, as well as other applications where a thin self-standing radiation flux detector is envisaged. In this paper, the HASPIDE project will be described and some preliminary results on PI and glass substrates will be reported.

The NA62 experiment aims to measure the BR(K+→π+νν̄) with a 10% precision. One of the main backgrounds comes from the decay K+→μ+ν, therefore a highly powerful pion/muon separation is needed. The NA62 RICH, together with the calorimeter system, provides an accurate particle identification which has been essential to obtain the first results of the NA62 K+→π+νν̄ analysis, based on 2016 data. Two different algorithms have been exploited which, used in combination, allowed to get a pion reconstruction and identification efficiency of 75%, with a muon suppression factor of about 500, in the momentum range 15–35 GeV/c.

The integrated low-level trigger and data acquisition (TDAQ) system of the NA62 experiment at CERN is described. The requirements of a large and fast data reduction in a high-rate environment for a medium-scale, distributed ensemble of many different sub-detectors led to the concept of a fully digital integrated system with good scaling capabilities. The NA62 TDAQ system is rather unique in allowing full flexibility on this scale, allowing in principle any information available from the detector to be used for triggering. The design concept, implementation and performances from the first years of running are illustrated.

The Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector of the NA62 experiment at the CERN SPS is a key element of particle identification in the NA62 experimental strategy. The detector fulfills different conditions: to distinguish pions from muons with a muon rejection factor of O(102) in the NA62 momentum range of operation, between 15 and 35 GeV/c; to measure particle arrival time in the decay region with a precision better than 100 ps; to provide fast signals and reference time to the NA62 trigger system. The main design aspects and functional characteristics, as well as the performance of the detector measured with the data taken in the first NA62 physics runs, will be summarized in this paper.

The NA62 experiment at the CERN SPS aims at measuring the branching ratio of the very rare kaon decay K+ -> pi(+) v (v) over bar (expected 10 10) with a 10% background. Since an high-intensity kaon beam is required to collect enough statistics, the Level-0 trigger plays a fundamental role in both the background rejection and in the particle identification. The calorimetric trigger collects data from various calorimeters and it is able to identify clusters of energy deposit and determine their position, fine-time and energy. This paper describes the trigger system setup during the 2016 physics data taking. A newly implemented cluster counting algorithm is also presented.

The NA62 experiment at CERN SPS has started its data-taking. Its aim is to measure the branching ratio of the ultra-rare decay K+ → π+ν ν̅ . In this context, rejecting the background is a crucial topic. One of the main background to the measurement is represented by the K+ → π+π0 decay. In the 1-8.5 mrad decay region this background is rejected by the calorimetric trigger processor (Cal-L0). In this work we present the performance of a soft-core based parallel architecture built on FPGAs for the energy peak reconstruction as an alternative to an implementation completely founded on VHDL language.

The NA62 experiment at the CERN SPS aims at measuring the branching ratio of the very rare kaon decay K+ -> pi(+)v (v) over tilde (expected 10 10) with a 10% background. Since an high-intensity kaon beam is required to collect enough statistics, the Level-0 trigger plays a fundamental role in both the background rejection and in the particle identification. The calorimetric trigger collects data from various calorimeters and it is able to identify clusters of energy deposit and determine their position, fine-time and energy. This paper describes the complete hardware commisioning and the setup of the trigger for the 2015 physics data taking.

Knowledge of the precise rigidity dependence of the helium flux is important in understanding the origin, acceleration, and propagation of cosmic rays. A precise measurement of the helium flux in primary cosmic rays with rigidity (momentum/charge) from 1.9 GV to 3 TV based on 50 million events is presented and compared to the proton flux. The detailed variation with rigidity of the helium flux spectral index is presented for the first time. The spectral index progressively hardens at rigidities larger than 100 GV. The rigidity dependence of the helium flux spectral index is similar to that of the proton spectral index though the magnitudes are different. Remarkably, the spectral index of the proton to helium flux ratio increases with rigidity up to 45 GV and then becomes constant; the flux ratio above 45 GV is well described by a single power law.

The NA62 experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) aims to measure the Branching Ratio of the very rare kaon decay K + → π + νν, collecting O (100) events with a 10% background to make a stringent test of the Standard Model. One of the main backgrounds to the proposed measurement is represented by the K + → π + π 0 , decay. To suppress this background an efficient photo veto system is foreseen with the Liquid Krypton (LKr) Electromagnetic Calorimeter Level 0 (L0) trigger. The development of a high-performance as well as reliable digital data system addresses this issue providing a mean to have the right bandwidth and efficiency to transmit experimental data to and from the counting room. This paper describes the LKr L0 trigger system, with particular emphasis for what concerns a LVDS digital data link used inside the system. Some aspects relative to the test set-up implementation as well as protocol test used to evaluate and qualify the digital data system are also part of the paper.

The NA62 experiment at CERN Super Proton Synchrotron aims at studying ultra-rare decays of charged kaons for precise tests of the Standard Model. The complete experimental setup is being commissioned for the first physics data taking in the autumn of 2014. This paper presents the final design and implementation of the Level-0 trigger system of the LKr calorimeter, acting as hermetic photon veto of the experiment in the 1-8.5 mrad region. The first on-field performance tests are presented.

The increment of luminosity at HL-LHC will require the introduction of tracker information at Level-1 trigger system for the experiments in order to maintain an acceptable trigger rate for selecting interesting events despite the one order of increased magnitude in the minimum bias interactions. In order to extract the track information in the required latency (∼ 5–10 μ s depending on the experiment), a dedicated hardware processor needs to be used. We here propose a prototype system (Pattern Recognition Mezzanine) as core of pattern recognition and track fitting for HL-LHC experiments, combining the power of both Associative Memory custom ASIC and modern Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices.

A precise measurement of the proton flux in primary cosmic rays with rigidity (momentum/charge) from 1 GV to 1.8 TV is presented based on 300 million events. Knowledge of the rigidity dependence of the proton flux is important in understanding the origin, acceleration, and propagation of cosmic rays. We present the detailed variation with rigidity of the flux spectral index for the first time. The spectral index progressively hardens at high rigidities.

We present a precise measurement of the combined electron plus positron flux from 0.5 GeV to 1 TeV, based on the analysis of the data collected by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer during the first 30 months of operations aboard the International Space Station. The statistics and the high resolution of AMS-02 detector provide a precise measurement of the flux. The flux is smooth and reveals new and distinct information. Above 30.2 GeV, the combined electron plus positron flux can be described accurately by a single power law.

NA62 is the last generation kaon experiment at CERN SPS aiming to study the decay K+→π+νν¯. The goal of the experiment is to measure the decay branching ratio, O(10−10), with 10% precision collecting about 100 K+→π+νν¯ events in three years of data taking and assuming a 10% signal acceptance. The weak signal and the huge background make the experiment very challenging. The NA62 detector must be able to reject background events from decay channels with branching ratios up to 10 orders of magnitude higher than the signal one and with similar experimental signature. In order to achieve the designed goal, good Particle Identification (PID), kinematic rejection and precise timing are required. The key element of the PID in NA62 is the Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector (RICH) to identify pions and muons and to measure the particle arrival time. After a pilot run in 2014, installation and commissioning of the detector were completed in 2015, when also the first physics run took place. Results on the detector performance will be presented together with preliminary results from the 2015 and 2016 physics runs.

The goal of the NA62 experiment at the CERN SPS is the measurement of the Branching Ratio of the very rare kaon decay K+ -> pi(+) V (V) over bar with a 10% accuracy by collecting 100 events in two years of data taking. An efficient photon veto system is needed to reject the K+ -> pi(+) pi(0) background and a liquid krypton electromagnetic calorimeter will be used for this purpose in the 1-10 mrad angular region. The L0 trigger system for the calorimeter consists of a peak reconstruction algorithm implemented on FPGA by using a mixed parallel architecture based on soft core Altera NIOS II embedded processors together with custom VHDL modules. This solution allows an efficient and flexible reconstruction of the energy-deposition peak. The system will be totally composed of 36 TEL62 boards, 108 mezzanine cards and 215 high-performance FPGAs. We describe the design, current status and the results of the first performance tests.

M. Aguilar, D. Aisa, B. Alpat, A. Alvino, G. Ambrosi, K. Andeen, L. Arruda, N. Attig, P. Azzarello, A. Bachlechner, F. Barao, A. Barrau, L. Barrin, A. Bartoloni, L. Basara, M. Battarbee, R. Battiston, J. Bazo, U. Becker, M. Behlmann, B. Beischer, J. Berdugo, B. Bertucci, G. Bigongiari, V. Bindi, S. Bizzaglia, M. Bizzarri, G. Boella, W. de Boer, K. Bollweg, V. Bonnivard, B. Borgia, S. Borsini, M. J. Boschini, M. Bourquin, J. Burger, F. Cadoux, X. D. Cai, M. Capell, S. Caroff, J. Casaus, V. Cascioli, G. Castellini, I. Cernuda, F. Cervelli, M. J. Chae, Y. H. Chang, A. I. Chen, H. Chen, G. M. Cheng, H. S. Chen, L. Cheng, A. Chikanian, H. Y. Chou, E. Choumilov, V. Choutko, C. H. Chung, C. Clark, R. Clavero, G. Coignet, C. Consolandi, A. Contin, C. Corti, B. Coste, M. Crispoltoni, Z. Cui, M. Dai, C. Delgado, S. Della Torre, M. B. Demirköz, L. Derome, S. Di Falco, L. Di Masso, F. Dimiccoli, C. Díaz, P. von Doetinchem, F. Donnini, W. J. Du, M. Duranti, D. D’Urso, A. Eline, F. J. Eppling, T. Eronen, Y. Y. Fan, L. Farnesini, J. Feng, E. Fiandrini, A. Fiasson, E. Finch, P. Fisher, Y. Galaktionov, G. Gallucci, B. García, R. García-López, C. Gargiulo, H. Gast, I. Gebauer, M. Gervasi, A. Ghelfi, W. Gillard, F. Giovacchini, P. Goglov, J. Gong, C. Goy, V. Grabski, D. Grandi, M. Graziani, C. Guandalini, I. Guerri, K. H. Guo, M. Habiby, S. Haino, K. C. Han, Z. H. He, M. Heil, J. Hoffman, T. H. Hsieh, Z. C. Huang, C. Huh, M. Incagli, M. Ionica, W. Y. Jang, H. Jinchi, K. Kanishev, G. N. Kim, K. S. Kim, Th. Kirn, R. Kossakowski, O. Kounina, A. Kounine, V. Koutsenko, M. S. Krafczyk, S. Kunz, G. La Vacca, E. Laudi, G. Laurenti, I. Lazzizzera, A. Lebedev, H. T. Lee, S. C. Lee, C. Leluc, H. L. Li, J. Q. Li, Q. Li, Q. Li, T. X. Li, W. Li, Y. Li, Z. H. Li, Z. Y. Li, S. Lim, C. H. Lin, P. Lipari, T. Lippert, D. Liu, H. Liu, T. Lomtadze, M. J. Lu, Y. S. Lu, K. Luebelsmeyer, F. Luo, J. Z. Luo, S. S. Lv, R. Majka, A. Malinin, C. Mañá, J. Marín, T. Martin, G. Martínez, N. Masi, D. Maurin, A. Menchaca-Rocha, Q. Meng, D. C. Mo, L. Morescalchi, P. Mott, M. Müller, J. Q. Ni, N. Nikonov, F. Nozzoli, P. Nunes, A. Obermeier, A. Oliva, M. Orcinha, F. Palmonari, C. Palomares, M. Paniccia, A. Papi, M. Pauluzzi, E. Pedreschi, S. Pensotti, R. Pereira, F. Pilo, A. Piluso, C. Pizzolotto, V. Plyaskin, M. Pohl, V. Poireau, E. Postaci, A. Putze, L. Quadrani, X. M. Qi, T. Räihä, P. G. Rancoita, D. Rapin, J. S. Ricol, I. Rodríguez, S. Rosier-Lees, A. Rozhkov, D. Rozza, R. Sagdeev, J. Sandweiss, P. Saouter, C. Sbarra, S. Schael, S. M. Schmidt, D. Schuckardt, A. Schulz von Dratzig, G. Schwering, G. Scolieri, E. S. Seo, B. S. Shan, Y. H. Shan, J. Y. Shi, X. Y. Shi, Y. M. Shi, T. Siedenburg, D. Son, F. Spada, F. Spinella, W. Sun, W. H. Sun, M. Tacconi, C. P. Tang, X.W. Tang, Z. C. Tang, L. Tao, D. Tescaro, Samuel C. C. Ting, S. M. Ting, N. Tomassetti, J. Torsti, C. Türkoğlu, T. Urban, V. Vagelli, E. Valente, C. Vannini, E. Valtonen, S. Vaurynovich, M. Vecchi, M. Velasco, J. P. Vialle, L. Q. Wang, Q. L. Wang, R. S. Wang, X. Wang, Z. X. Wang, Z. L. Weng, K. Whitman, J. Wienkenhöver, H. Wu, X. Xia, M. Xie, S. Xie, R. Q. Xiong, G. M. Xin, N. S. Xu, W. Xu, Q. Yan, J. Yang, M. Yang, Q. H. Ye, H. Yi, Y. J. Yu, Z. Q. Yu, S. Zeissler, J. H. Zhang, M. T. Zhang, X. B. Zhang, Z. Zhang, Z. M. Zheng, H. L. Zhuang, V. Zhukov, A. Zichichi, N. Zimmermann, P. Zuccon, C. Zurbach