The Proton Timing System of the TOTEM experiment at LHC

Abstract

The TOTEM experiment has developed a new timing detector to be used during a special LHC run. The new proton timing detector, based on Ultrafast Silicon Detectors, is installed in the TOTEM Roman Pots, at 220 meters from the interaction point 5 at LHC. The sensors are readout through a fast sampler chip: the SAMPIC. With a sampler, it is possible to record the detector waveforms so that sophisticated offline algorithms can be used to achieve the best timing performance. A new board has been designed to integrate the chip in the TOTEM and CMS DAQ and control systems. The core component of the board is a radiation hard FPGA, with a dedicated firmware designed to configure the SAMPIC and assemble the DAQ data frame event. The system was successfully operated during the run in July 2018. The detector will be described and the preliminary results discussed.