A simulation system and its applications for signal readout of CMOS pixel sensors in high energy physics experiments

Since the successful application in the STAR experiment, CMOS pixel sensors (CPSs) are preferred to be used in some other high energy physics experiments such as ALICE, CEPC and so on due to the low cost and potentially high performance. In this paper, we present an efficient simulation system for the signal readout of CPSs and its applications on simulating the Orthopix design and on studying new readout strategies. The proposed simulation system generates amounts of input hit images according the imaging characteristics in high energy physics experiments and evaluates the signal readout times and the data reconstruction efficiency for a specific readout strategy. The detection efficiencies of the Orthopix design are simulated with various images of different signal cluster sizes and occupancies. The obtained detection efficiencies are consistent with the results simulated with the abundant data from high energy physics experiments. In addition, two new readout strategies based on compressive sensing theory and based on binary search tree are introduced and studied with our simulation system. The simulation system can be used to evaluate the reconstruction efficiency and the required readout efforts. In one word, the proposed system demonstrates good efficiency on simulating the signal readout of CPS. The simulation systems can be utilized to study and improve other readout strategies for CPS in high energy physics experiments.