Speaker
Andrew Norman
(Fermilab)
Description
The NOvA experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Lab, uses a sophisticated timing distribution system to perform synchronization of more than 12,000 front end readout and data acquisition systems at both the near detector and accelerator complex located at Fermilab and at the far detector located 810km away at Ash River, MN. This global synchronization is performed to an absolute clock time with a system wide variation of less than 16ns, which allows for the direct comparisons of detector data with the accelerator beam spills. The system accomplishes this through the use of high precision GPS receivers, which are decoded by custom hardware to both determine the absolute wall clock times and propagate them to the readout systems. This custom hardware is able to perform detector wide calibrations for the paths to each frontend readout system that take into account the signal propagation and retransmission delays. The resulting system ensure that the electronics clock registers tick in perfect unison regardless of their position on the faces of the 220ft long, five story tall far detector. The paper will cover the details of the timing system, its characteristic and performance as demonstrated on the NOvA detectors. The paper will also describe the prospects for performing specific measurements, that rely on high precision timing, related to the properties of the neutrino.
Summary
The NOvA data acquisition groups presents the designs, capabilities and performance of a new system for performing timing and synchronization with the next generation of massive, distributed readouts for neutrino detectors. Results from the initial deployment of the system will be presented.
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Author
Andrew Norman
(Fermilab)
