New Spill Structure Analysis Tools for the VME Based Data Acquisition System ABLASS at GSI.

During the last years, a comprehensive VME-based data acquisition system for counter applications was developed. This package called ABLASS (A Beam Loss measurement And Scaling System) is used at the GSI heavy ion synchrotron (SIS18), at the high energy beam transfer lines (HEBT) and at the connected experiments. To achieve a maximum of experimental rate capability and to protect sensitive targets from significant intensity peaks, the particle distribution within the slowly extracted bunched beam has to be qualified. To analyze this spill-microstructure by means of scintillator pulses, new sophisticated tools were invented, such as Q-Analysis, which generates evaluated data in the μS-region. To measure the time distribution of the particles relative to the bunching RF-phase and the probability curve of consecutive particle hits in the ns-regime, a VME Multihit TDC with 25ps time resolution was implemented into ABLASS. The principle and outcome of these new methods substantiated by actual ion beam data will be presented. © 2006 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]