PS/SPS User Meeting

Thursday 6 Jul 2023, 10:30 → 12:03 Europe/Zurich

874/1-011 (CERN)

Eva Barbara Holzer (CERN)

minutes_of_the_ps_sps_user_meeting_20230706.docx

minutes_of_the_ps_sps_user_meeting_20230706.pdf

Minutes of the PS-SPS Users Meeting for Week 27 held on July 6th, 2023

Next user meeting:
For week 28 on Thursday, July 13th, 2023 10:30 CEST
Meeting room 874/1-011

News from the PS & SPS Physics Coordinator (E. B. Holzer, M. Jäkel)

SPS NA: EBC on operational beam Thursday July 6th from 14:00 onwards for two hours (or for an extended period if everything is stable)

See this codimd location from Tuesday morning onwards for the News from the FOM

ISOLDE

GPS: Physics (IS673) until 03.07. Target (#832) change on 06.07 followed by separator setup.
▪ HRS: Physics (IS714) with Cr beams at CRIS starting on 04.07.
▪ REX/HIE-ISOLDE: Complete phasing of SRF cavities. Test of the full post-accelerator chain using ³⁹K¹⁰⁺
from external source. First stable beam (²²Ne⁶⁺ at 7.2 MeV/u) to ISS for commissioning purposes.

AD/ELENA

• Investigation of recurrent issues with quads main.
  ▪ Fixing issue with amplifier in the stochastic cooler.
  ▪ Optimization of energy and electron trajectory in e-cooler.
  ▪ Optimization of magnetic horn current vs. target longitudinal position.
  ▪ Physics started on 30.06!

Preview of Booster inspections - no beam from 7:30 to 9:00.

This stops might be cancelled, if the inspections could be performed during other down-times.

• w28, on Thursday 13th July <- advanded during power cut
• w30, on Thursday 27th July.
• w33, on Monday 14th August.
• w35, on Thursday 31st August.
• w37, on Wednesday 13th September.
• w39, on Thursday 28th September.
• w41, on Wednesday 11th October.

Preview of next weeks MDs:

Week 27:

• Dedicated MD (8h-18h) for bunched beam slow extraction (and/or crab cavity)
  No beam to NA.

Week 28:

• Dedicated MD for SPS collimation studies (no extraction to the NA - to be confirmed)

Intensity split

Since FRIDAY 30.6 :

• NA64e reduces the number of units to 30 units on T2, with the increase by 10-20 units afterwards if needed.
• NA62 continues with 56 units on T4
• AMBER will increase to 110 maximum on T6 / Update : No beam since Tuesday morning

Problem with shifter access:
One shifter on IDEA DRC lost access to CERN on Saturday morning. Many thanks to Marilyse Briffouilliere from the Greybook Secretariat and Users Office to intervene on the Weekend and solve it by re-syncing the databases. Access for shifter was restored on early afternoon.

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PS Machine Report (Rubén)

• Thu to Thu availability of 95%
• No fault above 1h; mostly short faults, linked mainly to injector complex and RF cavities
• Some power converter issues on the secondary T10 line due to loss of eco mode (i.e. pulsing on all cycles). BE-EA is following up more closely, but from a PS OP point of view, consecutive East cycles will as much as possible be avoided.
• Checking possible improvements on MTE beam emittance, especially in vertical plane, due to SPS aperture restrictions

SPS Machine Report (Giulia)

• machine availability (Thu-Thu): 94% !!!
• SFTPRO intensity on target reduced after AMBER stop (Tue 04.07, T2/T4/T6 = 30/83/9), next increase foreseen Fri 07.07 (T2/T4/T6 = 30/75-83/45)
• EBC test today: setup 14:00-16:00, in operation until 17:30

Safety / Radiation Protection (Please Add Your Name Here)

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n_TOF (Nikolas Patronis)

• EAR1: 30Si(n,g) in data taking mode.
• EAR2: 243Am(n,f) also in data taking mode. We are on the last week for this measurement before moving to EAR1. On the 11/7 dismounting of the setup will take place (beam stop ~4h). On 12/7 we are going to change collimator (beam stop ~8h)
• NEAR: In the inner irradiation area (i-NEAR) radiation hardness studies are on going.
• PoT: 9.6E18 (MANY thanks to the PS teams!)

East Area Beam Status (Johannes Bernhard)

T09: IDEA DRC continues. Positrons beam checked for their setup Wednesday evening. Next Wednesday we will switch to low momentum configuration for WCTE.
T10: Operation ongoing, good performance.
T11: No beam as no user is scheduled.

Stand-by service for beamline-related questions outside of office hours: 67500 (Johannes Bernhard until Monday, 10.07.23, 09:30, then Dipanwita Banerjee).

East Area Users Tour de Table

T8: IRRAD / CHARM (F. Ravotti / S. Fiore)

Very good week with cumulative intensity delivered to T8 close to weekly specifications (>2.1E16 p/w, see plot below). Beam alignment on both X- and Y-axis also much improved with respect the previous two weeks (again above 90%, see also plot below for X-axis only). During the access on Wednesday, we exchanged dosimetry samples and all long-term users continue EP-ESE, TE-MSC [including N2 experiment], CMS Pixel [scanning table], ATLAS ITk strips [scanning table], RD50, etc. (IRRAD). Users from ATLAS, SY-EPC, BE-CEM installed new setups (CHARM). Upcoming access, next week.

T9: IDEA DRC (Nural Akchurin outgoing and Hwidong Yoo incoming)

We had a good run last week from June 28 to July 5. We used +5 GeV electrons. No issues with the beam. Good data taking for most of the time. Thanks everyone.

For Korean Team, detectors and daq systems are installed in experimental hall. And patrol training and safety inspection were done yesterday. Currently we are taking the data with positron beam. There are no issues for beam and so on.

T9 Incoming: WCTE - Week 28 (Please Add Your Name Here)

9 commissioning members are here for the preparation. The delivery of the magnet is delayed and it may be installed on July 19 for the tagged photon beam set up. Tentatively, transition to the high momentum setting is set on July 26.

T10 Outgoing: IDEA CC (Please Add Your Name Here)

T10 Main: ALICE ITS3 (Paolo Martinengo)

Detector installed,
in data taking since yester evening
beam quite good but issue with a magnet during the night
no air conditioning

T10 Parallel: ALICE TIMING (Manuel Colocci)

Detector installed and alignment in progress, no data taking in the night because of the problem with the beam

North Area Beam Status

General: Change of T4 target head to 180 mm length (was 100 mm for the last week and 40 mm before), in order to optimise electron content of the H8 beam. This implied changing the intensity on T4 to compensate for the interacting protons in the target. For T6, we requested to reduce the intensity as much as possible as there is no user.

Stand-by service for beamline-related questions outside of office hours: 67500 (Johannes Bernhard until Monday, 10.07.23, 09:30, then Dipanwita Banerjee).

H2, H4, H6, and H8 Beams (Johannes Bernhard)

H2: Transition to NA61 with installation of XCET & CEDAR-W.
H4: Transition to RD51 and GIF++ with muon, pion & a few electron shifts.
H6: Rate adjusted with change of T4 target to remain constant. Upcoming week is higher intensity. Installation tight in PPE156 but everyone could fit in.
H8: First electron run of 2023 finished, good performance of beamline. T4 target length changed to 180mm for higher electron yield for upcoming weeks.

Other Beams P42, K12, and M2 (Johannes Bernhard)

M2: AMBER high intensity test run went smoothly. Installation of infrastructure for NA64mu ongoing.
K12/P42: Check of correct vertical TAX/beam alignment and readjusting the optimum position done on Tuesday.

Incoming: HiRadMat - Week 28 (Please Add Your Name Here)

North Area Users Tour de Table

P42-K12 and M2

K12: NA62 (Chris Parkinson)

Good data taking since last week. We had Johannes and Lau in the CR to check tax and beam alignment. Later today we have the empty bucket channeling test. Request 29 units on T10; a slight increase over last week (which was 28 I believe) as we stabilised the DAQ of one detector.

M2: AMBER (Maxim Alexeev, Benjamin Moritz Veit)

Currently access only user in M2, incoming parasitic user in Week 28.

Thanks to a good beam delivery we have concluded the antiproton cross-section measurement exactly as expected Friday 30.06.23 at 13:00. With the excellent support from Dipanwita and the RP group the RP tests were performed on friday afternoon. Within a short time a exclusion zone withing the Bld. 888 and outside of it was installed and the test to evaluate the radioprotection conditions and risk assessment for a beam of up to 3.6 x 10⁸ p/second has been conducted. We received the permit to run over the nights with the 3.5 x 10⁸ to perform the test for the future high intensity DY measurement.

Unfortunately, the measurement was possible only with a limited program because nevertheless of the different attempts by SY-BI to bring the CEDARs operation at least close to the performance described in the Yellow report or 2018, no real gain was achieved and the operation of this equipment was very difficult.

Problems to be addressed:

1. The present CEDARs tuning precision is incompatible with the requirements @ high intensity DY. The present tuning precision on both the diaphragm and movement are vastly inferior to the reference found in the Yellow report and to the experience we had in 2018.
2. Together with Dipanwita we seem to have found out a strange beam compnonent parallel to the main beam after bend6. To be further investigated.
3. A fisc scan to determine the beam divergence was not possible due to problems with the beamline instrumentation.

We will report in more details on the first two issues in one of the future meetings.

The dissasembly of the CEDARs went very smooth and fast. The preperation of the target platform rotation started in parallel and is progressing well. Most of the AMBER spectrometer is in “winter mode”. We are giving the stage on the M2 beamline to our colleagues from NA64mu and MuonE for the next 2 months.

We would like to express our gratitude for the continuous support from all CERN departments and especially to the Beam department, SPS and RP that allowed a smooth running for the antiproton cross-section measurement of AMBER and the extended measurement program over the weekend.

Thanks a lot!

M2 Incoming Main: NA64mu (L. Molina)

We started installation on July, 5th. Things are progressing well with elements already in place. We want to thank the CERN BE-EA group specially Dipanwita, Sylvain and Michael. Also we would like to thank AMBER collaboration, specially Moritz and Maxim, for the great efforts in the coordination of activities.

H2

H2 Outgoing: LHCb ECAL (Matteo Salomoni and Loris Martinazzoli)

Measurments of time resolution and energy resolution were performed for the SPACAL module 0, build for ECAL Upgrade 1b. The results obtained will complement the TDR due in September, together with additional Shashlik configurations and alternative readout options (multi anode PMT, different light guide geometries).
Overall the beam quality was good even after the wobbling change performed to favor the parallel user on the other line. Purity was found to be better than 80% @ 100 GeV over the two weeks of TB.

Issue with power supply of quadrupole .083 failing. Issue might be worsened in case of frequent accesses.

H2: NA61/SHINE (Seweryn Kowalski)

We are at the warm-up phase for physics (neutrino) data taking— all detectors have already been on. At night, we start to take the first pilot data with TPC only (rate up 1.7 kHz)— no significant issues. Everything is going due to the schedule (till now)

H4

H4 Outgoing Main: NA64e (L. Molina)

We finish our run last Wednesday and deinstall everything.
-56 days of beam-time from 10.05 to 5.07.2023
-Calibration and commissioning of detectors, beam and trigger tuning from until 21.05.
-From May 22nd data taking at 6.2-6.7x10^6 e-/spill (about 100 units on T2 target).
We recorded ~5.07x10^11 EOT

-1 day dedicated to positrons at 70 GeV collecting 1.64x10^10 positrons on target

-Last 4 days dedicated to hadrons for feasibility studies of Dark sectors coupled to quarks.
We use 40 GeV hadron beam with two Cherenkov counters installed upstream our setup. We collected about 1010 hadrons on target.

H4 Main: GIF++ (Martin)

Most installations done well in advance. Partly waiting for RD51 to finish installation/access. Currently three setups ready for the source, others are in source off data taking.

10 out of 11 setups installed and running.
One last minute cancelation : ProToV.

One “surprise” setup announces as “identical” to last year, but actually quite different, putting much more material inside the gamma field. Migth has to go out for second week if unacceptable for other users.

H4 Parallel: RD51 (Yorgos Tsipoitis and Eraldo Oliveri)

Status Update

• 7 over 8 setups successfully installed and running. The 8th one had some issue with the delivery of the detector. If solved, we will install next Wednesday and go for new safety inspection.
• Beam condition (muons tested till now) very good for us. Tuning done for all expected beam, thanks Nikos. Today (3pm) fine tuning & feedback form us on electron beam.

Thanks

Our installations (large number of setup in short time with a lot of support required) are very demanding.
We sincerely express our gratitude to all NA teams (Michael Lazzaroni and team – installation and infrastructure, Francois Grenouilleau and team - handling, David Jaillet and team, gas service - gas, James Devine - safety, Letizia Di Giulio and Jonathan Gulley – flammable gases, Valerie Tromel and team - RP, Alexandre Beynel and team – alignment, Jerome Diego Orand and IT teams and Nikolaos Charitonidis and Bastien Rae – beam). Without their promptness and flexibility would not be possible.

A special thanks to the support for the use of flammable gases (safety and system) – last-minute change because of problems encountered with a new detector. Crucial help to setup in short time an additional gas line with different mixture. Detector tested yesterday on beam and the response was very positive. The team (from far and numerous) can fully use the two weeks of beam.

Notes

• Outlets and interenet connection in the area. IT supported rapidly (Jerome Diego Orand’s team). Some issues on our side, one in the system (user’s device assigning wrongly IPs) but for the moment working well . Large use on our side of the available IPs.
• Issues with NEW dosimeters and accesses/patrolling (!!). Reading not properly working, i.e. no access to EHN1, no possibility to patrol. Ticket opened. Access Control Team working on it. It is not a single case. It seems to be solved now (Celebi Yilmaz, database update, thanks)
• MD plans (yes/no, Dedicated/Parallel): in the past directly in the SPS schedule. Very simple and easy for all users. Now users should go through other schedules (injector, ASM,…?) Easy to do mistakes.
  For instance…12/7 Dedicated, 19/7 Parallel, right?
• EUROLAB: one team waiting for feedback on their request (L. Longo, DHCAL/MPGD)

H6

H6 Outgoing Main: CMS MTD (Federico Siviero)

ETL team accomplished all major goals: we tested all sensors (there was even time to measure an extra 16x16) with good quality, including also the tracker information (allowing for additional studies such as interpad distance)
We had stable beam for most of the time, with the requested intensity → a successful campaign!
Many thanks all the people helping us with the setup and tuning of the beam

H6 Outgoing Parallel: ATLAS ITK PIXEL (Please Add Your Name Here)

H6 Main: EP PIXEL (Dominik Dannheim)

• High-rate testing of Timepix3 iLGAD (installed yesterday), FASTPIX and DPTS samples.
• Beam settings as in last high-rate beam period, except slight change of trim magnets to have been centered in nominal position. (Following the change of target it had shifted by 1-2 mm in vertical/horizontal direction.) Achieving 4E6 / spill in H6B, for 3 spills per supercycle (limited by radiation level in PAXNA14612). Thank you Laurie for performing the beam tuning so quickly after the zones were closed!
• Good data-taking conditions since yesterday evening, except ~5 hours downtime because of access for parallel user. Note that rates are much higher at night - therefore better to plan longer access during daytime, if possible.
• We plan one longer access (~1h) for tomorrow early afternoon (t.b.c. depending on data-taking conditions today), to change to FASTPIX sample. Then another change early next week to DPTS sample.

H6 Incoming: ATLAS HGTD - Week 28-29 (Stefano Manzoni, Djamel Boumediene)

• Setting up in H6A starting on Wed 12th July for two weeks
• ISIEC form submitted on Wed. 5 July
• Main goal to test LGADs, typical target size: 2x2 mm^2
• Study LGAD performance (timing, efficiency, charge) by combining LGAD signal, MCP reference, telescope data
• Main tests planned at cold (-30 ºC) using the chiller from H6A
• Requirements: hadrons, typical beam size of ~1×1 cm^2, intensity of ~10^5 particles/spill

H8

H8 Outgoing Main: IDEA DRC (Roberto Ferrari)

Many good sets of data (more than expected) taken with electron, muon and pion beams (energy, angular and longitudinal scans). Electron efficiencies were roughly estimated. They go from 60% at 20 GeV down to about 45% at 100 GeV (still very preliminary results!).
The major issue was the DWC signals that were heavily affected by a lot of noise. In order to have them reasonably working, we switched off the comparators on the chambers and directly sent all the analogue signals to our electronics in the control room.
Last but not least, we need to really thank all the accelerator people for the prompt and effective support we got (Maarten, Inaki, …).

Note: we did not take parasitic data, the muon counter after the H8 DUMP was used for muon tagging.

H8 Main: ATLAS TILECAL (Giulio Usai, Tigran Mkrtchyan)

The installation of electronics on the detector is almost finalised. We plan to close the area this afternoon.
We had a preliminary safety inspection yesterday with few item to be cleaned up before proceeding to clearance for beam.
will follow up promptly with images to James Devine.
Marteen and Anna prepared and checked the beam files for electrons and started testing the hadrons one using the line upstream.
Many thanks to all personel of the NA for their help with the setup!

Parasitic Users

Reporting for parasitic users is optional, please add your name below:

M2 Outgoing: MUonE tracker+ECAL (Please Add Your Name Here)

H8 Outgoing: IDEA DRC (Roberto Ferrari)

No parasitic data taken (see above)

H4: STRAW TRACKER R&D (Temur Enik, Katerina Kuznetsova)

• many thanks for the opportunity for commissioning/debugging at H8 (two types of readout electronics + DAQ synchronization, also imporving the straw prototype)
• moved to H4, many thanks to RD51
• data taking ongoing
• scheduled back to H8 dump on week 32, but, if possible, would be happy to move there on 19.07 right after the H4 beam time

H6: EXFLU (Valentina Sola)

The setup is completed (4 DUTs + 2 triggers in a polystyrene box cooled with dry ice, readout by oscilloscope) and ready for the data taking.
Safety clearance 1 week ago.
System commissioning and preliminary data taking performed in the previous week.
We expect to complete our physics programme during the forthcoming week, exploiting the high-intensity beam.

H6: ATLAS MALTA (Please Add Your Name Here)

H6: MONOLITH (Lorenzo Paolozzi)

Our setup was installed on Wednesday 5/7. We needed to do some debugging during the night, but the situation is now fairly stable. We will still need short accesses from time to time tonchange trigger scheme and change the board, but we will try to do them during the day to leave the night for high intensity runs.
We noticed a problem in the beam safety: if we stop the beam in PPE146 and then we stop it in PPE156, this action will restart the beam in PPE146 (it happened several times).

M2 Incoming: AMBER (Please Add Your Name Here)

Also: outgoing main user M2, current access only / no beam user in M2

AOB

Minutes by the respective speakers, edited by E. B. Holzer, M. Jäkel, and M. Schwinzerl

10:30 → 10:36 News from the PS & SPS Physics Coordinator

Speaker: Eva Barbara Holzer (CERN)

10:36 → 10:39 PS machine report

Members of be-dep-ps-coordinators can upload material.

Speakers: Alexander Huschauer (CERN), Alexandre Lasheen (CERN), Benoit Salvant (CERN), Bettina Mikulec (CERN), Denis Gerard Cotte (CERN), Matthew Alexander Fraser (CERN), Ruben Garcia Alia (CERN)

2023-07_PS_users_report_week27.pdf

10:39 → 10:42 SPS machine report

Speakers: Arthur Spierer (CERN), Carlo Zannini (CERN), Francesco Maria Velotti (CERN), Giulia Papotti (CERN), Kevin Shing Bruce Li (CERN), Michael Schenk (CERN), Stephane Cettour Cave (CERN), Verena Kain (CERN)

10:42 → 10:45 Safety / Radiation Protection

Speakers: Alex Schouten, Evelyne Dho (CERN), James Devine (CERN), Jean-Francois Gruber (CERN), Laura Jayne Rowland (CERN), Letizia Di Giulio (CERN)

20230706_Safety_DL.pdf

General reminder to wear PPE in experimental areas, this includes wearing a helmet at all times (including in the GIF bunker).

Note that it is not possible to organise visits in EHN1 whilst the beam is operating due to RP considerations. There is no standard visit procedure or route (except for NA61 & GIF) so notice is required to arrange the documentation prior to a visit. It is not possible to request a visit at short notice.

Presentation from Dragoslav Lazic highlighting the need to improving housekeeping of experimental areas. Experimental areas should be left clean, tidy and exactly how you found them. This includes tidying all areas, returning moved furniture and replacing borrowed items where they were found. If any unpainted lead bricks are found or used in experimental areas, please inform Evelyne Dho from EP Safety to arrange for their safe disposal.

 

10:45 → 10:48 nTOF

Speakers: Alberto Mengoni (ENEA & INFN, Bologna), Michael Bacak (CERN), Nikolaos Patronis (University of Ioannina (GR))

10:48 → 10:51 East Area Beam Status

Speakers: Bastien Rae (CERN), Dipanwita Banerjee (CERN), Johannes Bernhard (CERN), Maarten Van Dijk (CERN), Michael Lazzaroni (CERN), Nikolaos Charitonidis (CERN)

10:51 → 11:09 East Area Users Tour de Table

11:09 → 11:12 Incoming: HiRadMat (Week 28)

Members of ps-sps-users e-group can upload material

11:12 → 11:18 North Area Beam Status

Speakers: Anna Baratto Roldan (CERN), Bastien Rae (CERN), Dipanwita Banerjee (CERN), Johannes Bernhard (CERN), Michael Lazzaroni (CERN), Nikolaos Charitonidis (CERN)

11:18 → 12:00 North Area Users Tour de Table

12:00 → 12:03 AOB