Trigger and Data Acquisition

The AMS trigger is generated by the signals coming from the TOF, ACC and ECAL.

Three types of fast triggers are designed for different particles: 1) the FTC for charged particles, 2) the FTZ for slow and heavy charged particles (like strangelets), and 3) the FTE for neutral particles detected in ECAL (producing electromagnetic showers). These three triggers are combined by a logical OR to produce a general fast trigger (FT). After the FT is generated, a dedicated electronics board named JLV1 starts analyzing different trigger signals and enters the Level-1 logic evaluation.

Seven sub-triggers (five physics-related triggers and two unbiased triggers) were designed and implemented for data taking onboard the ISS:

(1) single charged: 4 out of 4 TOF planes above HT in coincidence together with an absence of signals from the ACC;

(2) normal ions: 4 out of 4 TOF plane above SHT in coincidence together with less than 5 signals from the ACC;

(3) unbiased charged: 3 out of the 4 TOF layers above HT in coincidence, prescaled by a factor of 100 to reduce the trigger rate;

(4) slow ions: similar to normal ions but with extended gate width to latch the signals, as a dedicated trigger for detecting potential strangelets;

(5) electrons: 4 out of 4 TOF planes above HT in coincidence together with both 𝑥- and 𝑦-projections of ECAL energy deposition above threshold.

(6) photons: both 𝑥- and 𝑦-projections of ECAL energy deposition above thresh-old together with the ECAL shower angle inside the detector geometrical ac-ceptance.

(7) unbiased EM: ECAL signal above threshold, prescaled by a factor of 1000 to reduce the trigger rate.

Triggers (1)–(3) are the most important in the measurements of CR light nuclei (2≤𝑍 ≤8) fluxes. Details are described below using𝑍 = 2 events as an example.

Helium traversing the AMS are triggered and flagged by the logical OR of any of three trigger conditions onboard the ISS, i.e., (i) OR (ii) OR (iii) [116] as follows:

(i) the coincidence, within 240 ns, of signals from all 4 TOF planes each with a pulse height above the HT together with an absence of signals from the ACC;

(ii) the coincidence, within 240 ns, of signals from all 4 TOF planes each with a pulse height above the SHT together with signals from no more than 4 out of the 8 ACC sectors;

(iii) the coincidence, within 240 ns, of signals from 3 out of the 4 TOF planes each with a pulse height above the HT and with no ACC requirement.

To reduce the trigger rate, condition (iii) is prescaled to 1%; i.e., only 1 event out of 100 which meet these conditions is passed on to the logic OR. The efficiency of trigger (iii) is estimated directly from the data using events in which 1 of the 4 TOF layers gives no signal. It is above 99.99% for 𝑍 = 2 events in the rigidity range of 1.9 GV to 3 TV. This allows the estimation of the efficiency of each TOF layer and, consequently, the efficiency of trigger (iii). Most importantly, trigger (iii) can be used to measure the efficiency of triggers (i) and (ii). Together, requiring triggers (i) and (ii), hereafter called physics trigger, ensures a high efficiency of detecting CR ions with AMS, while effectively rejecting CR events which enter the ITk from the side.

The efficiency of the physics trigger in the carbon flux measurement is calculated in Chapter 3.

Onboard data processing reduces the raw data volume by a factor of 1000 without any physics information loss. The collected data are downlinked from the ISS to the ground at an average rate of 10 Mbit/s. Whenever the data are sent to the ground,

Electron and Positron Spectrum with AMS 33

I

C

R

C

, R

J

2013

Figure 7 : Trigger rate as a function of orbital position. Vari-ations are correlated with the geomagnetic cutoff rigidity.

4 Results

All information can now be used to calculate the energy spectra for electrons and positrons according to Eq. (1).

These preliminary fluxes multiplied by the third power of the energy are shown in Figure 8.

The electron flux measurement extends up to 500 GeV.

Multiplied by E

it is rising up to 10 GeV and appears to be on a smooth, slowly falling curve above. The measurement is in good agreement with the previous data reported by the PAMELA experiment [12] and HEAT experiment [3]. The differences at low energies can be attributed to the effect of solar modulation.

The positron flux measurement extends up to 350 GeV.

Multiplied by E

it is rising up to 10 GeV, from 10 to 30 GeV the spectrum is flat and above 30 GeV again rising as indicated by the black line in the figure. The spectral index and its dependence on energy is clearly different from the electron spectrum. In the low energy range the agreement with results reported by the HEAT experiment [3] is good.

5 Conclusions

Data record by the AMS experiment in the time interval from 19 May 2011 to 11 March 2013 have been analyzed.

This corresponds only to 10% of the expected total data volume. Combining the particle identification power of the high precision silicon tracker, the 17 radiation lengths deep electromagnetic calorimeter, and the 20 layer transition radiation detector allows to clearly separate cosmic-ray electrons and positrons from the large proton background.

A first measurement of the electron flux up to 500 GeV and of the positron flux up to 350 GeV has been presented. Details of the systematic errors are still under investigation. The measured spectra show smooth curves with no particular fine structures. The positron spectrum shows a break at around 30 GeV energy. Differences in the spectral indices of electrons and positrons as expected from the positron fraction measurement [1] are clearly visible.

6 Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by persons and institutions

Energy [GeV]

Figure 8 : Electron (top) and positron (bottom) fluxes as measured by AMS-02. For comparison, data from PAMELA [12] and HEAT [3] are shown. Data points are positioned within the energy bins according to [13]

.

References

[1] M. Aguilar et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110 (2013) 141102 doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.141102.

[2] A. Kounine, AMS collab., this conference (ID 1264) [3] M. A. DuVernois et al., ApJ 559 (2001) 296

[4] B. Bertucci, AMS collab., this conference (ID 1267) [5] J. Bazo, AMS collab., this conference (ID 0849)

C. Delgado, AMS collab., this conference (ID 1260) [6] H. Gast, AMS collab., this conference (ID 0359) [7] M. Aguilar-Benitez et al., NIM A 614 (2010) 237 [8] S. Di Falco, AMS collab., this conference (ID 0855) [9] C. Adloff et al, NIM A 714 (2013) 147

[10] J. Allison et al., IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 53 (2006) 270 [11] C. Stoermer, The Polar Aurora (Oxford University,

London, 1950)

[12] O. Adriani et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 106 (2011) 201101 [13] G. D. Lafferty and T. R. Wyatt, NIM A 355 (1995)

541

Figure 2-17: The AMS trigger rate as a function of the orbital position (in geographic latitude and longitude coordinates). Taken from Ref. [117].

they are also recorded in the AMS laptop onboard the ISS. The AMS laptop has a hard drive of 750 GB which can store up to about 6 days worth of AMS data, allowing one to retrieve the data lost on transmission to the ground. On the ISS, the CR particle rates in the detector acceptance vary from∼200 Hz near the Equator to

∼2000 Hz near Earth’s magnetic poles, as shown in Figure2-17. The data acquisition (DAQ) efficiency of AMS is 86% on average, resulting in an average event acquisition rate of ∼600 Hz.

In Figure2-17, there is a region, called South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) [118], over the South Atlantic Ocean centered near the east coast of Brazil, where the Earth’s magnetic field strength is the weakest (see Figure 2-18). This is due to the non-concentricity of the Earth and its magnetic dipole and the misalignment between the Earth’s magnetic axis and rotation axis. This asymmetry leads to the inner Van Allen belt reaching low enough (200 km altitude) for AMS to pass through. In the SAA, the number of low-energy charged particles increases by at least two orders of magnitude [119], resulting in orbiting aircrafts and satellites exposed to a higher level of radiation. This also causes the live time of AMS, which is defined as the fraction

63

k

US/UK World Magnetic Model - Epoch 2015.0 Main Field Total Intensity (F)

Map developed by NOAA/NGDC & CIRES http://ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/WMM Map reviewed by NGA and BGS Published December 2014 Main Field Total Intensity (F)

Contour interval: 1000 nT.

Mercator Projection.

: Position of dip poles

Figure 2-18: Contour map for the total intensity of the geomagnetic field [120] at thej

Earth’s surface. Contour interval: 1000 nT.

of each second that AMS is ready to trigger (i.e., to record a new event), to drop to zero. Therefore, in the data analysis it is required that the ISS was outside of the SAA. The SAA effect can be effectively reduced by applying selection cuts on the orbital position (in latitude and longitude) and on the live time (live time > 0.5).

This preserves most events collected in the geomagnetic polar regions where the live time decreases to about 0.8.