The readout system of the MAGIC-II Cherenkov Telescope

Understand

In this contribution we describe the hardware, firmware and software components of the readout system of the MAGIC-II Cherenkov telescope on the Canary island La Palma.

• The PMT analog signals are transmitted by means of optical fibers from the MAGIC-II camera to the 80 m away counting house where they are routed to the new high bandwidth and fully programmable receiver boards (MONSTER), which convert back the signals from optical to electrical ones.
• Then the signals are split, one half provide the input signals for the level ONE trigger system while the other half is sent to the digitizing units.
• The fast Cherenkov pulses are sampled by low-power Domino Ring Sampler chips (DRS2) and temporarily stored in an array of 1024 capacitors.