Abstract

 

Programmable Logic Devices as triggers in Auger experiment

 

The Pierre Auger Observatory will be the world largest detector of cosmic rays. The main goal is to explain the origin and characteristics of particles coming from the space with extremely high energy. The Observatory being built in Argentina and in 3 years in Utah to investigate the Southern and Northern hemisphere respectively consists with two types of detectors: fluorescence (registering the light from excited nitrogen from Extensive Air Showers in the atmosphere) and surface (registering Cherencov light in super pure water in tanks). In both detectors one of the main part are triggers separating real events from a noise. Up to now triggers were mainly built as the electronics with the fixed logic based on the multi-chips systems. The PAO is expected to operate for the next 20 years. To improve the flexibility and reliability of electronic, Programmable Logic Devices with Ultra Large Scale of Integration as triggers will be used. To build full trigger in fluorescence detector the only one PLD chip is needed, in surface detector one PLD with additional one chip of a standard cheap memory. The great advantage of PLD approach is an opportunity of reprogramming triggers in the fly by loading new configuration files. So, without any change of hardware we can modify in the future algorithms of the trigger working in nanosecond mode according with new requirements.