An Analog Level 1 Trigger Prototype for CTA

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) project aims to build the largest ground-based gamma ray observatory based on an array of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes. The CTA will implement a multi-level trigger system to distinguish between the gamma ray-like induced showers and the background images induced by night sky background light. The trigger system is based on looking for coincident detections among pixels (level 0 trigger), clusters of pixels (level 1) or telescopes (level 2). In this article one prototype of a Level 1 trigger system is presented, capable of working with different Level 0 strategies and different trigger region sizes. At the same time it complies with all the requirements specified by the CTA project, specially the most critical ones as regards noise, dynamic range, latency and power consumption. All these features make the presented system very suitable to be used by the CTA telescopes.