Event by event pile-up compensation in digital timestamped calorimetry

Abstract

In digital nuclear calorimetry, the effect on measured pulse amplitudes by piling up of pulses can be compensated based on the pulses' respective timestamps, making use of the fact that, for stable pulse shapes, the amount of pile-up induced error at each pulse amplitude measurement is completely determined by the amplitudes and precise occurrences in time of the neighboring pulses. We propose here a compensation method, based on the above observation, suitable for real-time as well as off-line implementation. Successful tests performed off-line both on synthetic and experimental data are shown as a proof of principle. We further propose a draft architectural approach to real-time compensation schemes of this functionality and the corresponding interaction with the experimental controls. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.