Architecture of the MEGA detector trigger

Abstract

Abstract The trigger for the MEGA detector system is based on signals from single, high-energy photons interacting in one of the three MEGA pair spectrometers. The trigger is divided into a fast and a slow stage. The first stage produces a fast output if a specific pattern of detector hits is observed in the scintillators and high-speed wire chambers of a pair spectrometer. The second, slow-stage interrogates drift chamber hit patterns and provides a veto when the pattern fails a minimal requirement for reconstruction of the hits into a pair of circular orbits. The trigger interacts with the photon detector electronics by gating limited sections of the detector during the read-out of an event. This paper describes the two stage trigger system, the photon detector electronics, and the implementation of the trigger outputs to strobe the data acquisition system. The performance of the trigger is compared to Monte Carlo simulations of the photon detector response.