Beam loss studies at the KARA Booster using the CLAWS Detector System

by Fabian Hummer (IPE), Florian Eisele

Tuesday May 5, 2026, 2:00 PM → 3:00 PM Europe/Berlin

Seminar Room ( Building 348 (KARA hall))

Many facilities employ beam loss monitors that report time-averaged loss rates and do not support precise time-of-arrival measurements. We developed an FPGA-based readout system that, in combination with plastic scintillator detectors, enables beam loss measurements with sub-nanosecond time resolution over multi-second acquisitions. The detectors are based on the so-called SiPM-on-Tile technology, where a plastic scintillator is directly coupled to a silicon photomultiplier (SiPM). We commissioned this system at the (50 - 500 MeV) booster synchrotron of the Karlsruhe Research Accelerator (KARA). This measurement campaign demonstrated the potential of this new technique. First, we characterized the beam background with nanosecond-level timing precision. Second, we acquired the accelerator clock and injection triggers, in order to correlate the beam background with beam injection, storage and extraction. In addition, we showed versatility of the readout system to sample the signals of a stripline sensor at the KARA main ring. In this seminar, we introduce the SiPM-on-Tile base detectors and we present our FPGA-based data acquisition system. Furthermore, we highlight first commissioning results and discuss  potential future applications of this technique.