Speaker
Description
The RD51 collaboration organises up to three times per year joint test beam campaigns at the H4 beam line of the CERN SPS. Following the integration of the VMM3a front-end ASIC into the RD51 Scalable Readout System (SRS), the combination of VMM3a and SRS was adapted to read out a new beam telescope for the RD51 collaboration. Furthermore, the beam telescope was used as Beam Position Detector (BPD) in the NA61/SHINE experiment for neutrino studies. Due to the electronics’ capabilities, the beam telescope is operated in a self-triggered continuous readout mode, allowing it to record MHz particle interaction rates with close to 100% efficiency. At the same time, this allows almost live feedback on the structure and quality of the particle beams. Due to the electronics’ time resolution of around 1 ns, the system is well suited to characterise the time resolution of most MPGD structures. Being able to access the charge information due to the analogue capabilities of the VMM3a, the system allows also to provide the energy information of the particles’ interactions, as well as the usage of position reconstruction algorithms to improve the spatial resolution. In this presentation, the beam telescope and its capabilities in terms of energy and time resolution are shown. Further, spatial resolution studies are presented, where the beam telescope is used to study its optimisation in software (alternative position reconstruction algorithms) and hardware (recovering charge information below the threshold level). Further, the ability to read out different kinds of detectors is demonstrated (GEMs, MicroMegas, μRWELL, Straw Tubes, NIM signals). In the end, the successful application of the beam telescope as BPD in the NA61/SHINE experiment and its performance there are highlighted.
