arXiv subjects

A. Howard

Publications and source records attributed to A. Howard.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Serenity-S1, a CMS Tracker Readout and Data Processing Card for HL-LHC

The CERN Large Hadron Collider will be upgraded to the High-Luminosity LHC, increasing the particle-collision rate and the demands on detector readout. A key element of this upgrade is the new CMS Tracker, whose silicon sensors will generate data at an aggregate rate of about 10 TB/s. This data must be routed efficiently to processing systems and filtered before storage. Serenity-S1 is an ATCA readout and data-processing card based on an AMD Virtex UltraScale+ VU13P FPGA with 128 high-speed serial transceivers. Twenty 12-channel Samtec FireFly optical modules provide up to 120 transmit and 120 receive channels at line rates of up to 25 Gb/s, while an additional optical module supports CMS Tracker links at up to 10 Gb/s per channel. The modular optical layout, combined with the large FPGA, makes Serenity-S1 suitable for several applications within and beyond CMS. ATCA provides the power and cooling required for operation in the CMS service cavern. Low-level management and the IPMI interface are provided by an OpenIPMC mezzanine, while an AMD Kria K26 system-on-module running AlmaLinux 9 performs higher-level board management and application control. Firmware and software frameworks provide common infrastructure so that users can focus on application-specific logic. The paper describes the hardware, firmware and software architecture of Serenity-S1 and its deployment in CMS Tracker integration and R&D activities.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2023

Lessons learned while developing the Serenity-S1 ATCA card

The Serenity-S1 is a Xilinx Virtex Ultrascale+ based Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (ATCA) processing blade that has been optimised for production. It incorporates many developments from the Serenity-A and Serenity-Z prototype cards and, where possible, adopts solutions being used across CERN. It also uses many new parts because commonly used parts have disappeared from the market during the semiconductor crisis, with only some returning. Improvements to simplify manufacture, the performance of new components, some of the more difficult aspects of procurement, the performance of production-grade Samtec 25\,Gb/s optical firefly parts, and issues with the rack cooling infrastructure are discussed.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2023

TOI-1801 b: A temperate mini-Neptune around a young M0.5 dwarf

We report the discovery, mass, and radius determination of TOI-1801 b, a temperate mini-Neptune around a young M dwarf. TOI-1801 b was observed in TESS sectors 22 and 49, and the alert that this was a TESS planet candidate with a period of 21.3 days went out in April 2020. However, ground-based follow-up observations, including seeing-limited photometry in and outside transit together with precise radial velocity (RV) measurements with CARMENES and HIRES revealed that the true period of the planet is 10.6 days. These observations also allowed us to retrieve a mass of 5.74 $\pm$ 1.46 $M_\oplus$, which together with a radius of 2.08 $\pm$ 0.12 $R_\oplus$, means that TOI-1801 b is most probably composed of water and rock, with an upper limit of 2\% by mass of H$_{2}$ in its atmosphere. The stellar rotation period of 16 days is readily detectable in our RV time series and in the ground-based photometry. We derived a likely age of 600--800 Myr for the parent star TOI-1801, which means that TOI-1801 b is the least massive young mini-Neptune with precise mass and radius determinations. Our results suggest that if TOI-1801 b had a larger atmosphere in the past, it must have been removed by some evolutionary mechanism on timescales shorter than 1 Gyr.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2023

Destructive breakdown studies of irradiated LGADs at beam tests for the ATLAS HGTD

In the past years, it has been observed at several beam test campaigns that irradiated LGAD sensors break with a typical star shaped burn mark when operated at voltages much lower than those at which they were safely operated during laboratory tests. The study presented in this paper was designed to determine the safe operating voltage that these sensors can withstand. Many irradiated sensors from various producers were tested in two test beam facilities, DESY (Hamburg) and CERN-SPS (Geneva), as part of ATLAS High Granularity Timing Detector (HGTD) beam tests. The samples were placed in the beam and kept under bias over a long period of time in order to reach a high number of particles crossing each sensor. Both beam tests lead to a similar conclusion, that these destructive events begin to occur when the average electric field in the sensor becomes larger than 12 Volts per micrometre.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2023

Performance of a front-end prototype ASIC for the ATLAS High Granularity Timing Detector

This paper presents the design and characterisation of a front-end prototype ASIC for the ATLAS High Granularity Timing Detector, which is planned for the High-Luminosity phase of the LHC. This prototype, called ALTIROC1, consists of a 5$\times$5-pad matrix and contains the analog part of the single-channel readout (preamplifier, discriminator, two TDCs and SRAM). Two preamplifier architectures (transimpedance and voltage) were implemented and tested. The ASIC was characterised both alone and as a module when connected to a 5$\times$5-pad array of LGAD sensors. In calibration measurements, the ASIC operating alone was found to satisfy the technical requirements for the project, with similar performances for both preamplifier types. In particular, the jitter was found to be 15$\pm$1~ps (35$\pm$1~ps) for an injected charge of 10~fC (4~fC). A degradation in performance was observed when the ASIC was connected to the LGAD array. This is attributed to digital couplings at the entrance of the preamplifiers. When the ASIC is connected to the LGAD array, the lowest detectable charge increased from 1.5~fC to 3.4~fC. As a consequence, the jitter increased for an injected charge of 4~fC. Despite this increase, ALTIROC1 still satisfies the maximum jitter specification (below 65~ps) for the HGTD project. This coupling issue also affects the time over threshold measurements and the time-walk correction can only be performed with transimpedance preamplifiers. Beam test measurements with a pion beam at CERN were also undertaken to evaluate the performance of the module. The best time resolution obtained using only ALTIROC TDC data was 46.3$\pm$0.7~ps for a restricted time of arrival range where the coupling issue is minimized. The residual time-walk contribution is equal to 23~ps and is the dominant electronic noise contribution to the time resolution at 15~fC.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2023

Gain Recovery in Heavily Irradiated Low Gain Avalanche Detectors by High Temperature Annealing

Studies of annealing at temperatures up to 450$^\circ$C with LGADs irradiated with neutrons are described. It was found that the performance of LGADs irradiated with 1.5e15 n/cm$^2$ was already improved at 5 minutes of annealing at 250$^\circ$C. Isochronal annealing for 30 minutes in 50$^\circ$C steps between 300$^\circ$C and 450$^\circ$C showed that the largest beneficial effect of annealing is at around 350$^\circ$C. Another set of devices was annealed for 60 minutes at 350$^\circ$C and this annealing significantly increased V$_{\mathrm{gl}}$. The effect is equivalent to reducing the effective acceptor removal constant by a factor of $\sim$ 4. Increase of V$_{\mathrm{gl}}$ is the consequence of increased effective space charge in the gain layer caused by formation of electrically active defects or re-activation of interstitial Boron atoms.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2022

The HD 260655 system: Two rocky worlds transiting a bright M dwarf at 10 pc

We report the discovery of a multi-planetary system transiting the M0 V dwarf HD 260655 (GJ 239, TOI-4599). The system consists of at least two transiting planets, namely HD 260655 b, with a period of 2.77 d, a radius of R$_b$ = 1.240$\pm$0.023 R$_\oplus$, a mass of M$_b$ = 2.14$\pm$0.34 M$_\oplus$, and a bulk density of $\rho_b$ = 6.2$\pm$1.0 g cm$^{-3}$, and HD 260655 c, with a period of 5.71 d, a radius of R$_c$ = 1.533$^{+0.051}_{-0.046}$ R$_\oplus$, a mass of M$_c$ = 3.09$\pm$0.48 M$_\oplus$, and a bulk density of $\rho_c$ = 4.7$^{+0.9}_{-0.8}$ g cm$^{-3}$. The planets were detected in transit by the TESS mission and confirmed independently with archival and new precise radial velocities obtained with the HIRES and CARMENES instruments since 1998 and 2016, respectively. At a distance of 10 pc, HD 260655 becomes the fourth closest known multi-transiting planet system after HD 219134, LTT 1445 A, and AU Mic. Due to the apparent brightness of the host star (J = 6.7 mag), both planets are among the most suitable rocky worlds known today for atmospheric studies with the JWST, both in transmission and emission.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2021

A novel kinetic mechanism for the onset of fast magnetic reconnection and plasmoid instabilities in collisionless plasmas

Magnetic reconnection can explosively release magnetic energy when opposing magnetic fields merge and annihilate through a current sheet, driving plasma jets and accelerating non-thermal particle populations to high energy, in plasmas ranging from space and astrophysical to laboratory scales. Through laboratory experiments and spacecraft observations, significant experimental progress has been made in demonstrating how fast dissipation and reconnection occurs in narrow, kinetic-scale current sheets. However, a challenge has been to demonstrate what triggers reconnection and how it proceeds rapidly and efficiently as part of a global system much larger than these kinetic scales. Here we show experimentally the full development of a process where the current sheet forms and then breaks up into multiple current-carrying structures at the ion kinetic scale. The results are consistent with tearing of the current sheet, however modified by collisionless kinetic ion effects, which leads to a larger growth rate and number of plasmoids than observed in previous experiments or compared to predictions from standard tearing instability theory and previous non-linear kinetic reconnection simulations. This effect will increase the role of plasmoid instabilities in many natural reconnection systems and should be considered in triggering rapid reconnection in a broad range of natural plasmas with collisionless, compressible flows, including at the Earth's magnetosheath and magnetotail and at the heliopause, in accretion disks, and in turbulent high-Mach-number collisionless shocks.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2021

The young HD 73583 (TOI-560) planetary system: Two 10-M$_\oplus$ mini-Neptunes transiting a 500-Myr-old, bright, and active K dwarf

We present the discovery and characterisation of two transiting planets observed by \textit{TESS} in the light curves of the young and bright (V=9.67) star HD73583 (TOI-560). We perform an intensive spectroscopic and photometric space- and ground-based follow-up in order to confirm and characterise the system. We found that HD73583 is a young ($\sim 500$~Myr) active star with a rotational period of $12.08 \pm 0.11 $\,d, and a mass and radius of $ 0.73 \pm 0.02 M_\odot$ and $0.65 \pm 0.02 R_\odot$, respectively. HD73583 b ($P_b=6.3980420 _{ - 0.0000062 }^{+0.0000067}$ d) has a mass and radius of $10.2 _{-3.1}^{+3.4} M_\oplus$ and$2.79 \pm 0.10 R_\oplus$, respectively, that gives a density of $2.58 _{-0.81}^{ 0.95} {\rm g\,cm^{-3}}$. HD73583 c ($P_c= 18.87974 _{-0.00074 }^{+0.00086}$) has a mass and radius of $9.7_{-1.7} ^ {+1.8} M_\oplus$ and $2.39_{-0.09}^{+0.10} R_\oplus$, respectively, this translates to a density of $3.88 _{-0.80}^{+0.91} {\rm g\,cm^{-3}}$. Both planets are consistent with worlds made of a solid core surrounded by a volatile envelope. Because of their youth and host star brightness, they both are excellent candidates to perform transmission spectroscopy studies. We expect ongoing atmospheric mass-loss for both planets caused by stellar irradiation. We estimate that the detection of evaporating signatures on H and He would be challenging, but doable with present and future instruments.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2020

Annealing effects on operation of thin Low Gain Avalanche Detectors

Several thin Low Gain Avalanche Detectors from Hamamatsu Photonics were irradiated with neutrons to different equivalent fluences up to $\Phi_{eq}=3\cdot10^{15}$ cm$^{-2}$. After the irradiation they were annealed at 60$^\circ$C in steps to times $>20000$ minutes. Their properties, mainly full depletion voltage, gain layer depletion voltage, generation and leakage current, as well as their performance in terms of collected charge and time resolution, were determined between the steps. It was found that the effect of annealing on timing resolution and collected charge is not very large and mainly occurs within the first few tens of minutes. It is a consequence of active initial acceptor concentration decrease in the gain layer with time, where changes of around 10\% were observed. For any relevant annealing times for detector operation the changes of effective doping concentration in the bulk negligibly influences the performance of the device, due to their small thickness and required high bias voltage operation. At very long annealing times the increase of the effective doping concentration in the bulk leads to a significant increase of the electric field in the gain layer and, by that, to the increase of gain at given voltage. The leakage current decreases in accordance with generation current annealing.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2020

Beam test results of IHEP-NDL Low Gain Avalanche Detectors(LGAD)

To meet the timing resolution requirement of up-coming High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), a new detector based on the Low-Gain Avalanche Detector(LGAD), High-Granularity Timing Detector (HGTD), is under intensive research in ATLAS. Two types of IHEP-NDL LGADs(BV60 and BV170) for this update is being developed by Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) of Chinese Academic of Sciences (CAS) cooperated with Novel Device Laboratory (NDL) of Beijing Normal University and they are now under detailed study. These detectors are tested with $5GeV$ electron beam at DESY. A SiPM detector is chosen as a reference detector to get the timing resolution of LGADs. The fluctuation of time difference between LGAD and SiPM is extracted by fitting with a Gaussian function. Constant fraction discriminator (CFD) method is used to mitigate the effect of time walk. The timing resolution of $41 \pm 1 ps$ and $63 \pm 1 ps$ are obtained for BV60 and BV170 respectively.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2020

Radiation Campaign of HPK Prototype LGAD sensors for the High-Granularity Timing Detector (HGTD)

We report on the results of a radiation campaign with neutrons and protons of Low Gain Avalanche Detectors (LGAD) produced by Hamamatsu (HPK) as prototypes for the High-Granularity Timing Detector (HGTD) in ATLAS. Sensors with an active thickness of 50~$\mu$m were irradiated in steps of roughly 2$\times$ up to a fluence of $3\times10^{15}~\mathrm{n_{eq}cm^{-2}}$. As a function of the fluence, the collected charge and time resolution of the irradiated sensors will be reported for operation at $-30^{\circ}$.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2020

Layout and Performance of HPK Prototype LGAD Sensors for the High-Granularity Timing Detector

The High-Granularity Timing Detector is a detector proposed for the ATLAS Phase II upgrade. The detector, based on the Low-Gain Avalanche Detector (LGAD) technology will cover the pseudo-rapidity region of $2.4<|\eta|<4.0$ with two end caps on each side and a total area of 6.4 $m^2$. The timing performance can be improved by implanting an internal gain layer that can produce signal with a fast rising edge, which improve significantly the signal-to-noise ratio. The required average timing resolution per track for a minimum-ionising particle is 30 ps at the start and 50 ps at the end of the HL-LHC operation. This is achieved with several layers of LGAD. The innermost region of the detector would accumulate a 1 MeV-neutron equivalent fluence up to $2.5 \times 10^{15} cm^{-2}$ before being replaced during the scheduled shutdowns. The addition of this new detector is expected to play an important role in the mitigation of high pile-up at the HL-LHC. The layout and performance of the various versions of LGAD prototypes produced by Hamamatsu (HPK) have been studied by the ATLAS Collaboration. The breakdown voltages, depletion voltages, inter-pad gaps, collected charge as well as the time resolution have been measured and the production yield of large size sensors has been evaluated.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2020

Experimental Study of Acceptor Removal in UFSD

The performance of the Ultra-Fast Silicon Detectors (UFSD) after irradiation with neutrons and protons is compromised by the removal of acceptors in the thin layer below the junction responsible for the gain. This effect is tested both with C-V measurements of the doping concentration and with measurements of charge collection using charged particles. We find a perfect linear correlation between the bias voltage to deplete the gain layer determined with C-V and the bias voltage to collect a defined charge, measured with charge collection. An example for the usefulness of this correlation is presented.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2019

Directly Imaging Rocky Planets from the Ground

Over the past three decades instruments on the ground and in space have discovered thousands of planets outside the solar system. These observations have given rise to an astonishingly detailed picture of the demographics of short-period planets, but are incomplete at longer periods where both the sensitivity of transit surveys and radial velocity signals plummet. Even more glaring is that the spectra of planets discovered with these indirect methods are either inaccessible (radial velocity detections) or only available for a small subclass of transiting planets with thick, clear atmospheres. Direct detection can be used to discover and characterize the atmospheres of planets at intermediate and wide separations, including non-transiting exoplanets. Today, a small number of exoplanets have been directly imaged, but they represent only a rare class of young, self-luminous super-Jovian-mass objects orbiting tens to hundreds of AU from their host stars. Atmospheric characterization of planets in the <5 AU regime, where radial velocity (RV) surveys have revealed an abundance of other worlds, is technically feasible with 30-m class apertures in combination with an advanced AO system, coronagraph, and suite of spectrometers and imagers. There is a vast range of unexplored science accessible through astrometry, photometry, and spectroscopy of rocky planets, ice giants, and gas giants. In this whitepaper we will focus on one of the most ambitious science goals --- detecting for the first time habitable-zone rocky (<1.6 R_Earth) exoplanets in reflected light around nearby M-dwarfs

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2012

Moderate interaction between 3d- and 4f-electrons and ferrimagnetism in Co-doped GdFeAsO

We synthesized a series of GdFe$_{1-x}$Co$_x$AsO polycrystalline samples ($0 \leq x \leq 1$) by using a solid state reaction method and present a systematic study on the physical properties by means of electrical resistivity $ρ(T)$, magnetic susceptibility $χ(T)$ and specific heat $C(T)$. The parent compound GdFeAsO undergoes a spin-density-wave (SDW) transition associated with Fe 3d-electrons around 130 K, followed by an antiferromagnetic (AFM) transition of Gd at $T^\textup{Gd}_\textup{N} \approx$ 4 K. The SDW transition is quickly suppressed by Fe/Co substitution and superconductivity appears in a narrow doping range of $0.05 < x < 0.25$, showing a maximum $T_\textup{sc}$ $\approx$ 20 K around $x = 0.1$. On the other hand, the 4f-electrons of Gd are antiferromagnetically ordered over the entire doping concentration ($0 \leq x \leq 1$), while the Co 3d-electrons exhibit a ferromagnetic (FM) transition above $x \approx 0.8$, with the Curie temperature ($T^\textup{Co}_\textup{C}$) reaching 75 K in GdCoAsO. These two magnetic species (Gd and Co) are coupled antiferromagnetically to give rise to ferrimagnetic behavior in magnetic susceptibility on the Co-rich side. For $0.7 \leq x < 1.0$, the system undergoes a possible magnetic reorientation below $T^\textup{Gd}_\textup{N}$.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2012

Tunable interplay between 3d and 4f electrons in Co-doped iron pnictides

We study the interplay of 3d and 4f electrons in the iron pnictides CeFe$_{1-x}$Co$_x$AsO and GdFe$_{1-y}$Co$_y$AsO, which correspond to two very different cases of $4f$-magnetic moment. Both CeFeAsO and GdFeAsO undergo a spin-density-wave (SDW) transition associated with Fe 3d electrons at high temperatures, which is rapidly suppressed by Fe/Co substitution. Superconductivity appears in a narrow doping range: $0.05 < x < 0.2$ for CeFe$_{1-x}$Co$_x$AsO and $0.05 < y < 0.25$ for GdFe$_{1-y}$Co$_y$AsO, showing a maximum transition temperature $T_\textup{sc}$ of about 13.5 K for Ce and 19 K for Gd. In both compounds, the $4f$-electrons form an antiferromagnetic (AFM) order at low temperatures over the entire doping range and Co 3d electrons are ferromagnetically ordered on the Co-rich side; the Curie temperature reaches $T_\textup{C}^\textup{Co} \approx$ 75 K at $x = 1$ and $y = 1$. In the Ce-compounds, the N\'{e}el temperature $T_\textup{N}^\textup{Ce}$ increases upon suppressing the SDW transition of Fe and then remains nearly unchanged with further increasing Co concentration up to $x \simeq 0.8$ ($T_\textup{N}^\textup{Ce}\approx$ 4 K). Furthermore, evidence of Co-induced polarization on Ce-moments is observed on the Co-rich side. In the Gd-compounds, the two magnetic species of Gd and Co are coupled antiferromagnetically to give rise to ferrimagnetic behavior in the magnetic susceptibility on the Co-rich side. For $0.7 \leq y < 1.0$, the system undergoes a possible magnetic reorientation below the N\'{e}el temperature of Gd ($T_\textup{N}^\textup{Gd}$). Our results suggest that the effects of both electron hybridizations and magnetic exchange coupling between the 3d-4f electrons give rise to a rich phase diagram in the rare-earth iron pnictides.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2009

HAT-P-11b: A Super-Neptune Planet Transiting a Bright K Star in the Kepler Field

We report on the discovery of HAT-P-11b, the smallest radius transiting extrasolar planet (TEP) discovered from the ground, and the first hot Neptune discovered to date by transit searches. HAT-P-11b orbits the bright (V=9.587) and metal rich ([Fe=H] = +0.31 +/- 0.05) K4 dwarf star GSC 03561-02092 with P = 4.8878162 +/- 0.0000071 days and produces a transit signal with depth of 4.2 mmag. We present a global analysis of the available photometric and radial-velocity data that result in stellar and planetary parameters, with simultaneous treatment of systematic variations. The planet, like its near-twin GJ 436b, is somewhat larger than Neptune (17Mearth, 3.8Rearth) both in mass Mp = 0.081 +/- 0.009 MJ (25.8 +/- 2.9 Mearth) and radius Rp = 0.422 +/- 0.014 RJ (4.73 +/- 0.16 Rearth). HAT-P-11b orbits in an eccentric orbit with e = 0.198 +/- 0.046 and omega = 355.2 +/- 17.3, causing a reflex motion of its parent star with amplitude 11.6 +/- 1.2 m/s, a challenging detection due to the high level of chromospheric activity of the parent star. Our ephemeris for the transit events is Tc = 2454605.89132 +/- 0.00032 (BJD), with duration 0.0957 +/- 0.0012 d, and secondary eclipse epoch of 2454608.96 +/- 0.15 d (BJD). The basic stellar parameters of the host star are M* = 0.809+0.020-0.027 Msun, R* = 0.752 +/- 0.021 Rsun and Teff = 4780 +/- 50 K. Importantly, HAT-P-11 will lie on one of the detectors of the forthcoming Kepler mission. We discuss an interesting constraint on the eccentricity of the system by the transit light curve and stellar parameters. We also present a blend analysis, that for the first time treats the case of a blended transiting hot Jupiter mimicing a transiting hot Neptune, and proves that HAT-P-11b is not such a blend.

astro-ph.EP↗