Digital signal acquisition system for complex nuclear reaction experiments

A digital data-acquisition system based on XIA LLC products was used in a complex nuclear reaction experiment using radioactive ion beams. A flexible trigger system based on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) parametrization was developed to adapt to different experimental sizes. A user-friendly interface was implemented, which allows converting script language expressions into FPGA internal control parameters. The proposed digital system can be combined with a conventional analog data acquisition system to provide more flexibility. The performance of the combined system was verified using experimental data.