Vilnius University (VU) hosts an international school on trigger and data acquisition ISOTDAQ2025 on June 17-26, 2025. Around one hundred participants from different countries will attend the event that shares experience from the European organization for nuclear research (CERN).
CMS detector. CERN photo
The school targets students and young researchers with an educational background in physics, engineering, and computer science. It aims to teach intricacies of trigger and data acquisition used in physics experiments. The open lectures will present the main physics instruments and techniques used in experiments of a different size – starting with those in small laboratories and ending with the big experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN.
Experienced CERN physicists and engineers will discuss their daily tasks working on trigger and data acquisition systems of different complexity: initiation of signal data acquisition, hardware and software, FPGA and GPU programming, data transfer technologies. The second part of the school activities is dedicated to registered school participants. Scientific equipment was sent from CERN to allow dedicated training at school. Practical exercises will strengthen knowledge acquired in lectures.
CERN is most frequently noted for being the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. This event, on the other hand, will not discuss particle physics. The main topics are physics experiment instrumentation and electronic signal processing needed to hunt very short-lived subatomic particles, like the famous Higgs boson.
ISOTDAQ is organized by CERN in a different country every year. This initiative is not limited to lecture students and young researchers on specific research methods. The travelling event allows to share knowledge, widen connections, and deepen experience that is obtained in large experiments at CERN, for example, the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) or the Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb), where the researchers of VU Faculty of Physics participate.