Readout electronics for SUBMET
Abstract
A dedicated data acquisition (DAQ) system has been developed for the SUB-Millicharge ExperimenT (SUBMET) at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC), a search for particles carrying a fractional electric charge Q = εe with ε below 𝒪(10−3), hereafter referred to as millicharged particles (mCPs). Because such particles are expected to produce at most a few scintillation photons, the system is optimized for single-photoelectron detection from the photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), combining high-speed waveform digitization with precise timing. To capture eight consecutive proton bunches of the 30 GeV J-PARC beam within a single trigger, the eight channels of the Domino Ring Sampler 4 (DRS4) chip are cascaded in groups of four to form two readout inputs, each sampling 4096 points continuously at 820.5 MHz over an effective time window of 5 us. After calibration, timing differences between channels are within 1 ns on the same DRS4 chip, 2 ns on the same board, and 8 ns across different boards, well within the 30 ns coincidence window of the experiment. The front-end electronics achieve an RMS noise below 0.4 mV. The baseline is deliberately offset upward such that the negative-going pulses span a larger fraction of the digitizer range, improving voltage resolution and dynamic range. A trigger control board aggregates data from multiple readout boards and sustains the data-transfer rate required for beam operation. The measured performance confirms that the DAQ system meets the timing, noise, and throughput requirements of the experiment.
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BibTeX
@misc{campagnari2026readout,
title = {{Readout electronics for SUBMET}},
author = {Claudio Campagnari and Sungwoong Cho and Suyong Choi and Seokju Chung and Matthew Citron and Albert De Roeck and Martin Gastal and Seungkyu Ha and Andy Haas and Christopher Scott Hill and Insung Hwang and Hoyong Jeong and Jaebak Kim and Jeonghwa Kim and Hyunki Moon and Ryan Schmitz and David Stuart and Eunil Won and Jae Hyeok Yoo and Jinseok Yoo and Ayman Youssef and Ahmad Zaraket and Haitham Zaraket},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.08427},
eprint = {2609.08427},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.08427},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Readout electronics for SUBMET
AU - Claudio Campagnari
AU - Sungwoong Cho
AU - Suyong Choi
AU - Seokju Chung
AU - Matthew Citron
AU - Albert De Roeck
AU - Martin Gastal
AU - Seungkyu Ha
AU - Andy Haas
AU - Christopher Scott Hill
AU - Insung Hwang
AU - Hoyong Jeong
AU - Jaebak Kim
AU - Jeonghwa Kim
AU - Hyunki Moon
AU - Ryan Schmitz
AU - David Stuart
AU - Eunil Won
AU - Jae Hyeok Yoo
AU - Jinseok Yoo
AU - Ayman Youssef
AU - Ahmad Zaraket
AU - Haitham Zaraket
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/08
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.08427
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.08427
AB - A dedicated data acquisition (DAQ) system has been developed for the SUB-Millicharge ExperimenT (SUBMET) at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC), a search for particles carrying a fractional electric charge Q = εe with ε below 𝒪(10^−3), hereafter referred to as millicharged particles (mCPs). Because such particles are expected to produce at most a few scintillation photons, the system is optimized for single-photoelectron detection from the photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), combining high-speed waveform digitization with precise timing. To capture eight consecutive proton bunches of the 30 GeV J-PARC beam within a single trigger, the eight channels of the Domino Ring Sampler 4 (DRS4) chip are cascaded in groups of four to form two readout inputs, each sampling 4096 points continuously at 820.5 MHz over an effective time window of 5 us. After calibration, timing differences between channels are within 1 ns on the same DRS4 chip, 2 ns on the same board, and 8 ns across different boards, well within the 30 ns coincidence window of the experiment. The front-end electronics achieve an RMS noise below 0.4 mV. The baseline is deliberately offset upward such that the negative-going pulses span a larger fraction of the digitizer range, improving voltage resolution and dynamic range. A trigger control board aggregates data from multiple readout boards and sustains the data-transfer rate required for beam operation. The measured performance confirms that the DAQ system meets the timing, noise, and throughput requirements of the experiment.
ER -