Mese, Marco (2024) Development of a new PMT readout and trigger system for the HEPD-02 calorimeter of the CSES-Limadou mission. [Tesi di dottorato]

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Abstract

This thesis describes the research activity I carried out as a PhD student, focused on the development and calibration of the PMT acquisition and trigger system for the High-Energy Particle Detector, which will be used onboard the second China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite for the CSES mission. This mission arises from the collaboration between the Chinese Space Agency (CNSA) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and foresees the realization of a constellation of satellites which will monitor ionospheric parameters possibly related to earthquakes. The satellites will also monitor the solar activity and the interaction with the magnetosphere and will study the low-energy cosmic rays, extending data from PAMELA and AMS. The CSES-02 satellite will be equipped with various instruments, among which the High Energy Particle Detector, a range calorimeter composed of plastic and inorganic scintillators coupled with PMTs, designed to measure the energy of charged particles in the range of 3 to 100 MeV for electrons, 30 to 200 MeV for protons and up to 200 MeV/amu for light nuclei. Signals from the PMTs are acquired and digitized by an electronic board that also produces the trigger for the detector. This board represents an enhancement of the previous version used for HEPD-01, onboard the CSES-01 satellite. One of the improvements consists of the use of a new generation ASIC (CITIROC) for the amplification, shaping and memorization of signals from PMTs. The new ASIC allows using the peak detection feature, optimizing the acquisition of signals with different temporal characteristics, such as those produced by plastic scintillators and LYSO. Furthermore, new algorithms for trigger generation have been developed, providing the possibility to use trigger pre-scaling and concurrent trigger masks and allowing the detection of Gamma Ray Bursts. By changing both the chosen concurrent triggers and the prescaling factors in different orbit zones, it is possible to control the bandwidth occupation between different physics channels and the acquisition of data in regions of the orbit, such as the poles and the South Atlantic Anomaly, where the particle rate significantly increases, especially for low energies, and can reach tens of megahertz. The electronics of HEPD-02 were designed to work in a space environment and present various measures to cope with such a hostile environment. After the integration of the detector, different campaigns for space qualification have been conducted before shipping to China.

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