T2K-WAGASCI: MIDAS-based DAQ software and online monitor for the readout of a large number of MPPCs

Abstract

Abstract The WAGASCI project aims to perform a study of neutrino-nucleus interactions at the J-PARC accelerator in Japan with a new fine-grained neutrino detector (WAGASCI module) coupled with muon range detectors (WallMRD and BabyMIND). The WAGASCI module main target for neutrinos is purified water. A hollow cuboid lattice made of scintillators bars is used to detect charged particles coming out of the neutrino interaction points. Measurements in wide phase space become possible by the combination of the WAGASCI modules, side and downstream muon range detectors. The downstream-MRD, the so-called BabyMIND detector, also works as a magnet and provides charge identification capability as well as magnetic momentum measurement for high energy muons. The DAQ of the WAGASCI experiment is a modern DAQ that takes the object oriented paradigm to a new level of sofistication. Not only objects are exensively used, but the very architecture of the DAQ itself is modular, composed of many blocks indipendent from each other and with a clear external API. This makes adding new functionality quite easy and maintaing the software less time consuming. Our DAQ is an hybrid made up of multiple packages, most notably MIDAS (a DAQ framework developed at TRIUMF and PSI), Pyrame (a frontend software developed at LLR) and the well-known ROOT (developed at CERN). It is the first attempt to merge MIDAS and Pyrame, in a hopefully armonic and organical way. This is because the official T2K DAQ software is MIDAS-based while the WAGASCI frontend electronics is supported by Pyrame only.