Integration and Commissioning of the ATLAS Fast TracKer system

Abstract

The Fast TracKer (FTK) system is a track reconstruction processor designed to perform full event tracking synchronously with the ATLAS Level 1 trigger acceptance rate. The high-quality tracks produced by the system will be used by High Level Trigger algorithms to improve the identification of physics objects such as b-jets and taus, as well as to help mitigate the effects of pile-up. The combinatorial challenge of the global track finding requires the use of a custom designed track processor. The idea behind FTK is to simulate all possible tracks before an ATLAS data-taking run. During the actual data-taking, the hits coming from the detector are compared with the hits expected from the simulated tracks. This comparison or ‘pattern matching’ is then followed by a two step linearized track fit. This task is executed by a system of seven custom electronics board types that will process data from the Inner Detector at the 100 kHz rate of the Level 1 trigger. Currently, the FTK system is under installation and commissioning into the ATLAS Data Acquisition System. The status of the system integration is presented and a review of the first data collected by the FTK system is shown.