The Barrel Time-of-Flight Detector (B-ToF) is a timing detector for the Panda experiment which is currently under construction at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) in Darmstadt, Germany. In fixed target p̄p collisions, with antiprotons accelerated up to a momentum of 15 GeV/c producing a center of mass energy of up to 5.5 GeV, open questions of hadron physics will be studied. This effort includes charmonium spectroscopy and the search for exotics and hybrids as well as the study of hypernuclei and of hadrons in matter. In this context the B-ToF complements the particle identification information of the DIRC detectors and provides valuable information for particles in the lower momentum range up to about 1 GeV/c via relative time-of-flight measurements. A >1800 mm long transmission line PCB connects the SiPMs on the scintillators to the front-end electronics and provides mechanical support to the scintillator tiles acts as the backbone of the detector. In order to determine the best performing layout three prototype iterations are examined and tested for the crosstalk level and signal attenuation effects. While the crosstalk is negligible in all design iterations an amplitude reduction of (11.7 ± 0.5) % is observed for the newest board prototype using low loss materials. This is well above the attenuation of a standard coaxial cable. The employed connections lead to a doubling of the signal rise time. The effect of this on the time resolution is yet to be determined. To achieve intended functionality a highly granular and efficient detector design is necessary providing a time resolution of below 100 ps. The detector is made up of 16 identical sections each carrying 120 scintillating tiles, which are read out by an array of four SiPMs connected in series. This work presents time resolution scans using a 90 Sr source over the entire scintillator surface in order to evaluate the detector performance and determine the optimal scintillator tile thickness. Comparing four 3 mm to 6 mm thick scintillator tiles, the measurements show that a 5 mm thick scintillator providing a mean time resolution of 52.3 ps with a spread of ±5.9 ps over the entire surface, is the optimal choice for the detector. In addition the performance was verified in test beam measurements at the T9 beamline at CERN under conditions closer to the expected conditions in Panda using mixed particle beam mainly containing pions and kaons. Time resolutions of (55.8 ± 4.3) ps to (80.1 ± 1.5) ps were measured for detector modules utilizing SiPMs by different manufacturers.

This document describes the technical layout and the expected performance of the Data Acquisition system for the PANDA experiment (Phase 1). This is the latest version approved by FAIR on August 25, 2021 after the review by FAIR ECE in spring 2021.

In recent decades, the quantum field theory of strong interaction (QCD) has been impressively demonstrated in the area of high energies and momentum transfers. Nowadays, novel experiments allow for challenging the methods for the calculation of QCD also in the non-perturbative regime by the continuous improvement of measurement accuracy. PANDA at the upcoming FAIR accelerator facility is one of such experiments. At PANDA, antiprotons with momenta of up to15 GeV/c will be annihilated at a fixed proton target under high luminosities. Among a variety of detector systems, PANDA stands out with its lead tungstate electromagnetic calorimeter (EMC), which is designed to have a wide dynamic range (10 MeVto14.6 GeV) and a relative energy resolution of better than 2.5 % at 1 GeV. The development of the backward part of the PANDA EMC is the first scientific goal of this thesis. Since the development of the backward EMC has progressed so far, it is foreseen for an experiment within the FAIRPhase-0 research programme. It is proposed to measure the double-virtual electromagnetic transition form factor (TFF) of the pion in the Primakoff π0 electroproduction at the Mainz Microtron facility (MAMI). The pion TFF is related via the hadronic light-by-light scattering to the g_μ−2 puzzle. Consequently, the second scientific goal of this thesis are preparatory studies for FAIR Phase-0. The developments of this work resulted in a fully functional prototype calorimeter, which operated stably in numerous tests at MAMI. However, the focus of this work is digital signal processing (DSP) for the PANDA EMC. A specially developed software framework allowed for testing and optimising signal filtering algorithms and parameter extraction methods on realistically simulated signals. Thus, the algorithms are well-adapted to the time structure of the ̄PANDA calorimeter preamplifier (APFEL) signals. Furthermore, the DSP methods were implemented on the Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) of the PANDA digitisation board. The developed FPGA firmware provides a self-triggering readout for all calorimeter channels, an efficient implementation of a high order filter with a finite impulse response (FIR), noise hit suppression and pileup handling.Together with the calorimeter prototype, the digital signal processing was tested at MAMI. Thanks to the use of the DSP methods, an energy detection threshold (single-crystal) of less than 2.5 MeV was achieved. This allowed for a measured relative energy resolution of 2.190(2) % at 1 GeV. Moreover, the non-linearity of the calorimeter is in the order of a few per mill. Due to the self-triggering concept of the FPGA firmware,measurements under high detector rates were possible. Thus, a dead time of 464(13) ns and a pileup probability of 4.53(12) % at 100 kHz was determined. For the measurement of the pion TFF, a high flux of low energy electrons and photons is expected. Thus, test beams with the prototype were performed to determine the impact of the low energetic background on the measurement. By utilising both experiment data and simulations, an upper limit for the relative energy resolution (2.75(4) % to 6.57(2) % at 1 GeV) as a function of the luminosity (2.77μb−1/s to 55.34μb−1/s) was found. The study allows an estimation of the FAIR Phase-0 measuring time.