[en] The increasing complexity of the real-time data acquisition and processing systems (TDAQ: the so called Trigger and Data AcQuisition systems) in high energy physics calls for an appropriate evolution of development tools. This work is about the interplay between in principle specifications of TDAQ systems and their actual design and realization on a concrete hardware and software platform. The basis of our work is to define a methodology for the development of TDAQ systems that meets the specific demands for the development of such systems. The result is the detailed specification of a 'methodological framework' based on the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and designed to manage a development process. The use of this UML-based methodological framework progressively leads to the setting up of a 'home-made' framework, i.e. a development tool that comprises reusable components and generic architectural elements adapted to TDAQ systems. The main parts of this dissertation are sections II to IV. Section II is devoted to the characterization and evolution of TDAQ systems. In section III, we review the main technologies that are relevant to our problematic, namely software reuse techniques such as design patterns and frameworks, especially concerning the real-time and embedded systems domain. Our original conceptual contribution is presented in section IV, where we give a detailed, formalized and example-driven specification of our development model. Our final conclusions are presented in section V, where we present the MORDICUS project devoted to a concrete realization of our UML methodological framework, and the deep affinities between our work and the emerging 'Model Driven Architecture' (MDA) paradigm developed by the Object Management Group. (author)

[en] KM3NeT is a European consortium whose goal is a future underwater neutrino telescope of cubic kilometer size in the Mediterranean Sea. The science case includes the study of high energy phenomena in the Universe involving the emission of neutrinos. The detection principle is based on an extended array of photomultipliers detecting single Cherenkov photons emitted by the charged products of neutrino interactions. This paper describes the conceptual design of a data acquisition and trigger architecture for the KM3NeT telescope. Its main features are based on the experience of the NEMO, NESTOR and ANTARES neutrino telescope pilot projects. The main issues addressed by this design include the integration of hundreds of acquisition nodes interconnected through a high bandwidth network and the seamless management of high rate data flows resulting from challenging levels of background noise. The networking technologies used -e.g. dense or coarse wavelength division multiplexing- address optimization issues such as minimizing the number of deep-sea fiber connections The network topology is optimized for 'all data to shore' transmission in which a real-time distributed data acquisition application manages a fluctuating data flow. The data are organized as time-slices and routed accordingly to a workstation farm running trigger algorithms which are expected to reduce the data flow by a factor of 10(4). The control and configuration schemes that allow the proper operation of the neutrino telescope are specified together with their associated database organization principle. These principles address the issues of hardware description management, configurations and run conditions and their association with the acquired data. We will illustrate how the KM3NeT data acquisition system is intended to make the most of the available and affordable software and hardware technologies in a challenging data flow context involving embedded, real-time processing. (author)

[en] The NA48 charged trigger is a mixed hardware and software real time processing system intended to detect the interesting configurations of K⁰ charged decays. It achieves real-time event building, track reconstruction and kinematics computation on drift chamber data at an event rate of 100 kHz and within a maximum decision latency of 100 micros. The system uses data driven, FPGA-based coordinate builders, a hardware event builder based on a crossbar switch, and a farm of up to 16 event processors for its software part. It has been installed and operated at CERN since 1995. After a description of the constraints and architecture of the various subsystems, the paper will give an account of the results and performance of the system based on the 1996/1997 runs. More specifically, the replacement of the present DSP-based implementation of the processing farm by RISC processors will be discussed

[en] The NA48 charged trigger is a mixed hardware and software real-time processing system intended to detect the interesting configurations of K⁰ charged decays. It achieves real-time event building, track reconstruction and kinematics computation on drift chamber data at an event rate of 100 kHz and within a maximum decision latency of 100 μs. The system uses data driven, FPGA-based coordinate builders, a hardware event builder based on a crossbar switch, and a farm of up to 16 event processors for its software part. It has been installed and operated at CERN since 1995. After a description of the constraints and architecture of the various subsystems, the paper gives an account of the results and performance of the system based on the 1996/1997 runs. More specifically, the replacement of the present DSP-based implementation of the processing farm by RISC processors will be discussed. (author)

No abstract available

[en] This contribution reports on the read-out system of the future KM3NeT undersea network of several thousands of synchronized optical detecting nodes. Each node embeds a specifically designed fully integrated communicating system based on Xilinx FPGA SoC technology. It runs the VxWorks real-time OS and DAQ software designed within the Ice middleware framework resulting in a highly flexible, controllable and scalable distributed application. Clock distribution and delay calibration over customized fixed latency gigabit Ethernet links enable synchronous time stamping of events with nanosecond precision.

[en] The System-on-Chip (SoC) approach consists in using state-of-the-art FPGA devices with embedded RISC processor cores, high-speed differential LVDS links and ready-to-use multi-gigabit transceivers allowing development of compact systems with substantial number of IO channels. Required performances are obtained through a subtle separation of tasks between closely cooperating programmable hardware logic and user-friendly software environment. We report about our experience in using the SoC approach for designing the production test bench of the off-shore readout system for the ANTARES neutrino experiment

[en] We develop a general theory of optical activity of semiconductor nanocrystals whose chirality is induced by a small perturbation of their otherwise achiral electronic subsystems. The optical activity is described using the quantum-mechanical expressions for the rotatory strengths and dissymmetry factors introduced by Rosenfeld. We show that the rotatory strengths of optically active transitions are decomposed on electric dipole and magnetic dipole contributions, which correspond to the electric dipole and magnetic dipole transitions between the unperturbed quantum states. Remarkably, while the two kinds of rotatory strengths are of the same order of magnitude, the corresponding dissymmetry factors can differ by a factor of 10"5. By maximizing the dissymmetry of magnetic dipole absorption one can significantly enhance the enantioselectivity in the interaction of semiconductor nanocrystals with circularly polarized light. This feature may advance chiral and analytical methods, which will benefit biophysics, chemistry, and pharmaceutical science. The developed theory is illustrated by an example of intraband transitions inside a semiconductor nanocuboid, whose rotatory strengths and dissymmetry factors are calculated analytically.

[en] A large volume TPC will be used in the near future in a variety of experiments including T2K. The bulk Micromegas detector for this TPC is built using a novel production technique particularly suited for compact, thin and robust low mass detectors. The capability to pave a large surface with a simple mounting solution and small dead space is of particular interest for these applications. We have built several large bulk Micromegas detectors (36x34cm²) and we have tested one in the former HARP field cage with a magnetic field. Prototypes cards of the T2K front end electronics, based on the AFTER ASIC chip, have been used in this TPC test for the first time. Cosmic ray data have been acquired in a variety of experimental conditions. Good detector performances, space point resolution and energy loss measurement have been achieved.

[en] Today with the advent of intense radioactive beams, we have access to nuclear spectroscopy and reaction studies of nuclei far from stability. It has been demonstrated that Time Projection Chambers (TPC) method can be very effective as an active target for such studies yielding low thresholds, efficiency and luminosity. To this end a Generic Electronic system for TPCs (GET) is in development and will cover small to medium sized instrumentation (64 to 32 k channels) with a relatively wide charge dynamic ranges for event rates of up to 1 kHz. The 64-channel AGET (ASIC for GET) front-end circuit has been developed to perform the amplification, detection and analog storage of the shaped detector signal before its digitization by an external 12-bit ADC. This design offers a large flexibility in sampling frequency (100 MHz max.), peaking time (16 values from 50 ns to 1 μs), gain (4 ranges from 120 fC to 10 pC per channel) and signal polarity (negative or positive). Fabricated using 0.35 μm CMOS technology, the AGET prototype is under test and the first results are presented. (authors)