prescale
A prescale is a factor used to reduce the rate at which events, samples, or signals are processed by a system by selecting only a subset according to a fixed rule. The prescale factor is expressed as an integer N; a prescale of N means that one out of every N events is accepted, while the others are discarded or ignored. The term is common in experimental physics, electronics, and data acquisition, where data volume or bandwidth constraints require selective sampling.
In particle physics and detector readouts, prescaling is applied to triggers or data streams. For example, in
In electronics, a prescaler is a clock divider circuit that reduces a high-frequency input to a lower-frequency
Common considerations include the choice of prescale factor (higher factors reduce data volume but also statistical
See also: prescaler, trigger, data acquisition, sampling, downsampling.