The Laser Control System for a Calibration Facility of a Light-Based Detector

Laser calibration facilities play a key role in the study and characterization of detectors like electromagnetic or hadronic calorimeters. They can be operated both during physics data taking and off runs. Typically, these facilities are based on a laser source which delivers light to each detector element via a light distribution system. The laser control (LC) system typically manages the interface between the experiment and the laser source, allowing the generation of light pulses according to specific needs such as detector calibration, study of detector performance in running conditions, and evaluation of data acquisition performance. Any specific implementation depends on hardware features. As an example, light pulses could be generated according to a physics distribution during physics runs or real data taking. In this case, light pulses should be generated according to a pattern that follows a programmable function and changes on a statistical base event by event. In this paper, we present a LC system for calibration of a calorimeter. It is a custom solution based on a hybrid platform hosting a field-programmable gate array and an ARM processor. We present the system architecture and the performances of a preliminary implementation. This system, in a more specific and specialized version, will be used in the Muon g-2 experiment (E989) at Fermilab.