AugerPrime Upgraded Electronics

Abstract

Since 2015, the Pierre Auger Observatory has been undergoing an important upgrade. It consists of the addition of Scintillator Surface Detectors (SSD) on top of the existing Water-Cherenkov Detectors (WCDs), as well as a small Photo-Multiplier Tube (sPMT) inside the WCDs (both excluding the outer crown of the array), an Underground Muon Detectors (UMD) in the limited higher density area, denominated Infill, where the stations are installed at a distance of 750 m instead of the standard 1.5 km (SD750 and later also in the SD433), and a Radio Detector antenna array (RD) at each of the 1660 surface detector stations. To process the signals of all these detector systems and to increase the dynamic range and time resolution, new electronics, Upgraded Unified Boards (UUBs) have been developed and are being produced and deployed at the Observatory. The combination of all of these new features of the Surface Detector (SD) will provide an enhanced capability for answering the still many open questions related to the nature of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. In this work the main characteristics, the production and validation chain, the performances and the status of the implementation of the new Upgraded Unified Boards will be illustrated. The first data collected from the already operational upgraded stations in the array will also be presented.