The MUonE DAQ: online track-finding and event selection in hardware at 40 MHz

High-intensity particle beams provide a significant challenge to DAQ systems, especially in complex architectures reading out many sensors. The MUonE experiment has been conducting beam tests using the M2 muon beam at CERN, with in-spill intensity of 5 × 10 7 muons/s, using tracking modules equipped with silicon strip sensors and a module readout bandwidth of 5 Gb/s. A pilot run has been performed in late summer 2023, incorporating several such modules arranged in three tracking stations and a prototype of an electromagnetic calorimeter connected to a triggerless readout system. Limits on processing and data storage will necessitate online event selection to be implemented in hardware, on state-of-the-art AMD-Xilinx UltraScale+ FPGAs. The status and plans of the MUonE DAQ operation will be presented, outlining a general purpose platform for online event selection, from simple occupancy cuts, to track reconstruction, vertexing, and particle identification.