The Continuous Readout Stream of the MicroBooNE Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber for Detection of Supernova Burst Neutrinos

Understand

The MicroBooNE continuous readout stream is a parallel readout of the MicroBooNE liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) which enables detection of non-beam events such as those from a supernova neutrino burst.

• The low energies of the supernova neutrinos and the intense cosmic-ray background flux due to the near-surface detector location makes triggering on these events very challenging.
• Instead, MicroBooNE relies on a delayed trigger generated by SNEWS (the Supernova Early Warning System) for detecting supernova neutrinos.
• The continuous readout of the LArTPC generates large data volumes, and requires the use of real-time compression algorithms (zero suppression and Huffman compression) implemented in an FPGA (field-programmable gate array) in the readout electronics.