Abstract The XENONnT detector uses the latest and largest liquid xenon-based time projection chamber (TPC) operated by the XENON Collaboration, aimed at detecting Weakly Interacting Massive Particles and conducting other rare event searches.The XENONnT data acquisition (DAQ) system constitutes an upgraded and expanded version of the XENON1T DAQ system.For its operation, it relies predominantly on commercially available hardware accompanied by open-source and custom-developed software.The three constituent subsystems of the XENONnT detector, the TPC (main detector), muon veto, and the newly introduced neutron veto, are integrated into a single DAQ, and can be operated both independently and as a unified system.In total, the DAQ digitizes the signals of 698 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), of which 253 from the top PMT array of the TPC are digitized twice, at ×10 and ×0.5 gain.The DAQ for the most part is a triggerless system, reading out and storing every signal that exceeds the digitization thresholds.Custom-developed software is used to process the acquired data, making it available within ∼30 s for live data quality monitoring and online analyses.The entire system with all the three subsystems was successfully commissioned and has been operating continuously, comfortably withstanding readout rates that exceed ∼500 MB/s during calibration.Livetime during normal operation exceeds 99% and is ∼90% during most high-rate calibrations.The combined DAQ system has collected more than 2 PB of both calibration and science data during the commissioning of XENONnT and the first science run.
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This content will become publicly available on January 14, 2026
Scripting data acquisition operations and choice of data format for the data files of the DUCK ultra-high energy cosmic rays detector
This document outlines the control software considerations for the D.U.C.K (Detection of Unusual Cosmic casKades). The primary goal of this software is to provide users with the ability to control Flash Analog to Digital Converter functions and conduct DAQ (Data Acquisition) operations as well as set the file format for saving the data. The ROOT software framework was found to be particularly useful for DAQ and serves as the primary tool for storing and analyzing our data. Limitations of the software are being considered, and further development is being conducted.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2316097
- PAR ID:
- 10631992
- Publisher / Repository:
- Archive.Org https://arxiv.org/pdf/2501.08235
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Data Acquisition (DAQ) workloads form an important class of scientific network traffic that by its nature (1) flows across different research infrastructure, including remote instruments and supercomputer clusters, (2) has ever-increasing through-put demands, and (3) has ever-increasing integration demands—for example, observations at one instrument could trigger a reconfiguration of another instrument. Today’s DAQ transfers rely on UDP and (heavily tuned) TCP, but this is driven by convenience rather than suitability. The mismatch between Internet transport protocols and scientific workloads becomes more stark with the steady increase in link capacities, data generation, and integration across research infrastructure. This position paper argues the importance of developing specialized transport protocols for DAQ workloads. It proposes a new transport feature for this kind of elephant flow: multi-modality involves the network actively configuring the transport protocol to change how DAQ flows are processed across different underlying networks that connect scientific research infrastructure. Multi-modality is a layering violation that is proposed as a pragmatic technique for DAQ transport protocol design. It takes advantage of programmable network hardware that is increasingly being deployed in scientific research infrastructure. The paper presents an initial evaluation through a pilot study that includes a Tofino2 switch and Alveo FPGA cards, and using data from a particle detector.more » « less
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Abstract Four years after the discovery of a unique DAQ white dwarf with a hydrogen-dominated and carbon-rich atmosphere, we report the discovery of four new DAQ white dwarfs, including two that were not recognized properly in the literature. We find all five DAQs in a relatively narrow mass and temperature range ofM= 1.14–1.19M⊙andTeff= 13,000–17,000 K. In addition, at least two show photometric variations due to rapid rotation with ≈10 minute periods. All five are also kinematically old, but appear photometrically young, with estimated cooling ages of about 1 Gyr based on standard cooling tracks, and their masses are roughly twice the mass of the most common white dwarfs in the solar neighborhood. These characteristics are smoking gun signatures of white dwarf merger remnants. Comparing the DAQ sample with warm DQ white dwarfs, we demonstrate that there is a range of hydrogen abundances among the warm DQ population and that the distinction between DAQ and warm DQ white dwarfs is superficial. We discuss the potential evolutionary channels for the emergence of the DAQ subclass, suggesting that DAQ white dwarfs are trapped on the crystallization sequence and may remain there for a significant fraction of the Hubble time.more » « less
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