Neutrino Recorder

Kaon has developed a recorder for use by Sheffield University as part of the ACORNE (Acoustic Cosmic Ray Neutrino Experiment) project. The recorder provides eight analogue input channels with up to 110 kHz input bandwidth that can be attached to a hydrophone array. The recorder is designed to capture ultra-high energy (UHE) neutrino events. Some of these particles enter the Earth's atmosphere with Joules of energy. UHE neutrinos rarely interact and more often than not pass through the Earth without interacting. However, once in a while the neutrino does interact, in which case much of its energy goes into heating a small volume of material, which can lead to an acoustic pulse. Candidate events are currently being analysed.

RAID technology is used for primary storage, with WAVE format files being used to enable open access to the data. The system provides over fifteen days of unattended operation using the primary storage in its current configuration recording all channels. A tape archive unit, provided by Sheffield University, using an LTO-3 tape auto-changer provides secondary storage which extends the unattended operation time to over three months. Data is automatically transferred from the primary to the secondary storage media via a Gigabit Ethernet link.

The system, shown above, is comprised of an acquisition unit (bottom), RAID, secondary storage controller and tape auto-changer (top). The acquisition unit and secondary storage units are based on high performance server PCs running the Linux operating system. These have been optimised to meet the required real-time performance of the system.

Read more about the ACORNE project.