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D. Tagnani

Publications and source records attributed to D. Tagnani.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

T-DAQ-P: a portable tablet-form multi-stream data acquisition and contextual telemetry platform based on COTS modules and a custom integration layer

We present T-DAQ-P, a compact and portable data acquisition and telemetry platform designed to support detector deployments in laboratory and field conditions by integrating event streaming, slow-control telemetry, and operator-oriented commissioning tools in a single unit. The system combines a Raspberry Pi 5 host for multi-stream ingestion, visualization, and storage with an Arduino UNO R4 WiFi microcontroller dedicated to sensor acquisition. The electronics integrate commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) modules through an engineered interface layer including protected power distribution, logic-level adaptation, and a DB-37 expansion connector exposing I2C-SPI-ADC lines for external instrumentation. On the telemetry side, the microcontroller firmware performs automatic I2C discovery, conditional sensor handling, and outputs framed NMEA-like messages with XOR checksum and explicit block delimiters, enabling robust parsing and synchronization on the host. A finite-state control (STOP-RUN-SIM-INIT) and watchdog-style recovery actions implement resilience under partial hardware availability and field failures. The host software adopts a multi-process architecture with independent readers for event, telemetry, and actuator streams, message queues for isolation, and coherent time-stamped logging across streams. A simulation mode and integrated command channel allow end-to-end pipeline verification and rapid commissioning without full sensor availability. The paper details architecture, electronics integration, firmware protocol, host software design, and functional/engineering validation procedures, providing a reproducible blueprint for portable instrumentation readout and contextual telemetry acquisition.

physics.ins-det

A Modular Datalogger and Slow-Control Platform for Physics Experiments with Time-Series Telemetry and Web Dashboards

We present a NIM 2U slow-control system designed for continuous monitoring of environmental and facility parameters during data taking in nuclear physics experiments. The architecture integrates a base controller board with eight channels for PT100/PT1000 probes and up to three plug-in extension boards, each providing SMA connections on the front panel. All boards adopt a 16-bit SAR ADC with an external 2.5 V reference, yielding an LSB of 38.15 uV and ensuring metrological uniformity across heterogeneous channel types. The operating range for PT100/PT1000 probes spans -200 degrees Celsius to 300 degrees Celsius, with a design accuracy at the 1 percent level. The system includes modules dedicated to standard industrial signals 4--20 mA and 0--10 V and a module for current measurement in the 500 nA--100 uA range with automatic gain range selection. The software chain publishes time series to Graphite and provides visualization through Grafana over Ethernet. A complete quantitative characterization of stability and accuracy is ongoing and will be reported in a subsequent work.

physics.ins-det

Design and Commissioning of Readout Electronics for a $K_L^0$ and $\mu$ Detector at the Belle II Experiment

The K-long and muon detector (KLM) constitutes the outer-most volume of the Belle II spectrometer at the interaction region of the SuperKEKB collider in Tsukuba, Japan. The KLM detector was partially upgraded since the Belle experiment by replacing many of its resistive-plate chambers with scintillators containing wavelength-shifting fibers and instrumenting it with silicon photomultipliers. We describe the readout electronics, firmware, and software created to control and acquire data from the scintillators and resistive-plate chambers.

hep-ex

Clarifying the Radiative Decay of the Hoyle State with Charged-Particle Spectroscopy

A detailed knowledge of the decay properties of the so called Hoyle state in the $^{12}$C nucleus ($E_x=7.654$ MeV, $0^+$) is required to calculate the rate at which carbon is forged in typical red-giant stars. This paper reports on a new almost background-free measurement of the radiative decay branching ratio of the Hoyle state using advanced charged particle coincidence techniques. The exploitation, for the first time in a similar experiment, of a bidimensional map of the coincidence efficiency allows to reach an unitary value and, consequently, to strongly reduce sources of systematic uncertainties. The present results suggest a value of the radiative branching ratio of $\Gamma_{rad}/\Gamma_{tot}=4.2(6)\cdot10^{-4}$. This finding helps to resolve the tension between recent data published in the literature.

nucl-ex

The Front-End electronics for the liquid Argon instrumentation of the LEGEND-200 experiment

In this paper we provide a detailed technical description of the Front-End (FE) electronics for the liquid Argon instrumentation of the LEGEND-200 experiment, searching for the very rare, hypothetical neutrinoless double $β$ decay process at the Italian Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. The design stems from the need to read out the silicon photo-multiplier response to the scintillation light in the liquid Argon with excellent single-photon resolution. The FE electronics is required to be placed far from the detectors to meet the experiment's radio-purity constraints. This constraint represents a challenge for a high signal-to-noise ratio. We address how this could be achieved in a stable way. The system was installed in July 2021 and has been commissioned with the rest of LEGEND-200, proving we could attain a very low overall level of electrical noise of 250 $μ$V peak-to-peak.

physics.ins-det

Cross-section measurement of two-photon annihilation in-flight of positrons at $\sqrt{s}=20$ MeV with the PADME detector

The inclusive cross-section of annihilation in flight $e^+e^-\rightarrowγγ$ of 430 MeV positrons with atomic electrons of a thin diamond target has been measured with the PADME detector at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati. The two photons produced in the process were detected by an electromagnetic calorimeter made of BGO crystals. This measurement is the first one based on the direct detection of the photon pair and one of the most precise for positron energies below 1 GeV. This measurement represents a necessary step to search for dark sector particles and mediators weakly coupled to photons and/or electrons with masses ranging from 1 MeV to 20 MeV with PADME. The measurement agrees with the Next to Leading Order QED prediction within the overall 6% uncertainty.

hep-ex

Crilin: A CRystal calorImeter with Longitudinal InformatioN for a future Muon Collider

The measurement of physics processes at new energy frontier experiments requires excellent spatial, time, and energy resolutions to resolve the structure of collimated high-energy jets. In a future Muon Collider, the beam-induced backgrounds (BIB) represent the main challenge in the design of the detectors and of the event reconstruction algorithms. The technology and the design of the calorimeters should be chosen to reduce the effect of the BIB, while keeping good physics performance. Several requirements can be inferred: i) high granularity to reduce the overlap of BIB particles in the same calorimeter cell; ii) excellent timing (of the order of 100 ps) to reduce the out-of-time component of the BIB; iii) longitudinal segmentation to distinguish the signal showers from the fake showers produced by the BIB; iv) good energy resolution (less than 10%/sqrt(E)) to obtain good physics performance, as has been already demonstrated for conceptual particle flow calorimeters. Our proposal consists of a semi-homogeneous electromagnetic calorimeter based on Lead Fluoride Crystals (PbF2) readout by surface-mount UV-extended Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs): the Crilin calorimeter. In this paper, the performances of the Crilin calorimeter in the Muon Collider framework for hadron jets reconstruction have been analyzed. We report the single components characterizations together with the development of a small-scale prototype, consisting of 2 layers of 3x3 crystals each.

physics.ins-det

Commissioning of the PADME experiment with a positron beam

The PADME experiment is designed to search for a hypothetical dark photon $A^{\prime}$ produced in positron-electron annihilation using a bunched positron beam at the Beam Test Facility of the INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati. The expected sensitivity to the $A^{\prime}$-photon mixing parameter $ε$ is 10$^{-3}$, for $A^{\prime}$ mass $\le$ 23.5 MeV/$c^{2}$ after collecting $\sim 10^{13}$ positrons-on-target. This paper presents the PADME detector status after commissioning in July 2019. In addition, the software algorithms employed to reconstruct physics objects, such as photons and charged particles, and the calibration procedures adopted are illustrated in detail. The results show that the experimental apparatus reaches the design performance, and is able to identify and measure standard electromagnetic processes, such as positron Bremsstrahlung, electron-positron annihilation into two photons.

physics.ins-det

Radiation study of Lead Fluoride crystals

Lead fluoride (PbF$_2$) crystals represent an excellent and relatively innovative choice for high resolution electromagnetic calorimeters with high granularity and fast timing for high intensity environments. For this reason two PbF$_2$ crystals, sized $5\times 5 \times 40 $ mm$^3$, were irradiated with $^{60}$Co photons up to $\sim 4$ Mrad and with 14 MeV neutrons up to a $10^{13}$ n/cm$^2$ total fluence. Their loss in transmittance was evaluated at different steps of the photon and neutron irradiation campaign, resulting in a total of 30% loss above 350 nm. With crystals always kept in dark conditions, natural and thermal annealing, as well as optical bleaching with 400 nm light, were performed on the irradiated specimens, resulting in a partial recovery of their original optical characteristics.

physics.ins-det

The PADME beam line Monte Carlo simulation

The PADME experiment at the DA$Φ$NE Beam-Test Facility (BTF) of the INFN Laboratory of Frascati is designed to search for invisible decays of dark sector particles produced in electron-positron annihilation events with a positron beam and a thin fixed target, by measuring the missing mass of single-photon final states. The presence of backgrounds originating from beam halo particles can significantly reduce the sensitivity of the experiment. To thoroughly understand the origin of the beam background contribution, a detailed Geant4-based Monte Carlo simulation has been developed, containing a full description of the detector together with the beam line and its optical elements. This simulation allows the full interactions of each particle to be described, both during beam line transport and during detection, a possibility which represents an innovative way to obtain reliable background predictions

hep-ex

Characterisation and performance of the PADME electromagnetic calorimeter

The PADME experiment at the LNF Beam Test Facility searches for dark photons produced in the annihilation of positrons with the electrons of a fix target. The strategy is to look for the reaction $e^{+}+e^{-}\rightarrow γ+A'$, where $A'$ is the dark photon, which cannot be observed directly or via its decay products. The electromagnetic calorimeter plays a key role in the experiment by measuring the energy and position of the final-state $γ$. The missing four-momentum carried away by the $A'$ can be evaluated from this information and the particle mass inferred. This paper presents the design, construction, and calibration of the PADME's electromagnetic calorimeter. The results achieved in terms of equalisation, detection efficiency and energy resolution during the first phase of the experiment demonstrate the effectiveness of the various tools used to improve the calorimeter performance with respect to earlier prototypes.

physics.ins-det

The Mu2e Calorimeter Final Technical Design Report

Since the first version of the Mu2e TDR released at the beginning of 2015, the Mu2e Calorimeter system has undergone a long list of changes to arrive to its final design. These changes were primarily caused by two reasons: (i) the technology choice between the TDR proposed solution of BaF2 crystals readout with solar blind Avalanche Photodiodes (APDs) and the backup option of CsI crystals readout with Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM) has been completed and (ii) the channels numbering, the mechanical system and the readout electronics were substantially modified while proceeding with engineering towards the final project. This document updates the description of the calorimeter system adding the most recent engineering drawings and tecnical progresses.

physics.ins-det

Measurement of the energy and time resolution of a undoped CsI + MPPC array for the Mu2e experiment

This paper describes the measurements of energy and time response and resolution of a 3 x 3 array made of undoped CsI crystals coupled to large area Hamamatsu Multi Pixel Photon Counters. The measurements have been performed using the electron beam of the Beam Test Facility in Frascati (Rome, Italy) in the energy range 80-120 MeV. The measured energy resolution, estimated with the FWHM, at 100 MeV is 16.4%. This resolution is dominated by the energy leakage due to the small dimensions of the prototype. The time is reconstructed by fitting the leading edge of the digitized signals and applying a digital constant fraction discrimination technique. A time resolution of about 110 ps at 100 MeV is achieved.

physics.ins-det

CHANTI: a Fast and Efficient Charged Particle Veto Detector for the NA62 Experiment at CERN

The design, construction and test of a charged particle detector made of scintillation counters read by Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM) is described. The detector, which operates in vacuum and is used as a veto counter in the NA62 experiment at CERN, has a single channel time resolution of 1.14 ns, a spatial resolution of ~2.5 mm and an efficiency very close to 1 for penetrating charged particles.

physics.ins-det

A GEM-based Time Projection Chamber for the AMADEUS experiment

In this paper we present the R&D activity on a new GEM-based TPC prototype for AMADEUS, a new experimental proposal at the DAΦNE Φ-factory at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (INFN), aiming to perform measurements of the low-energy negative kaons interactions in nuclei. Such innovative detector will equip the inner part of the experiment in order to perfom a better reconstruction of the primary vertex and the secondary particles tracking. A 10x10 cm2 prototype with a drift gap up to 15 cm was realized and succesfully tested at the π M1 beam facility of the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) with low momentum hadrons. The measurements of the detector efficiency and spatial resolution have been performed. The results as a function of the gas gain, drift field, front-end electronic threshold and particle momentum are reported and discussed.

physics.ins-det

Performances of a GEM-based Time Projection Chamber prototype for the AMADEUS experiment

A large number of high-energy and heavy-ion experiments successfully used Time Projection Chamber (TPC) as central tracker and particle identification detector. However, the performance requirements on TPC for new high-rate particle experiments greatly exceed the abilities of traditional TPC read out by multi-wire proportional chamber (MWPC). Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) detector has great potential to improve TPC performances when used as amplification device. In this paper we present the R&D activity on a new GEM-based TPC detector built as a prototype for the inner part for AMADEUS, a new experimental proposal at the DAFNE collider at Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (INFN), aiming to perform measurements of the low-energy negative kaons interactions in nuclei. In order to evaluate the GEM-TPC performances, a 10x10 cm2 prototype with a drift gap up to 15 cm has been realized. The detector was tested at the pM1 beam facility of the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) with low momentum pions and protons, without magnetic field. Drift properties of argonisobutane gas mixtures are measured and compared withMagboltz prediction. Detection efficiency and spatial resolution as a function of a large number of parameters, such as the gas gain, the drift field, the front-end electronic threshold and particle momentum, are illustrated and discussed. Particle identification capability and the measurement of the energy resolution in isobutane-based gas mixture are also reported.

physics.ins-det

The NA62 LAV front-end electronics

The branching ratio for the decay $K^+ \to π^+ν\barν$ is sensitive to new physics; the NA62 experiment will measure it to within about 10%. To reject the dominant background from channels with final state photons, the large-angle vetoes (LAVs) must detect particles with better than 1 ns time resolution and 10% energy resolution over a very large energy range. Our custom readout board uses a time-over-threshold discriminator coupled to a TDC as a straightforward solution to satisfy these requirements. A prototype of the readout system was extensively tested together with the ANTI-A2 large angle veto module at CERN in summer 2010.

physics.ins-det