PS/SPS User Meeting

Thursday 17 Aug 2023, 10:30 → 12:13 Europe/Zurich

874/1-011 (CERN)

Dragoslav Lazic (Boston University (US))

minutes_of_the_ps_sps_user_meeting_20230817.pdf

PS-SPS Users Meeting for Week 33 held on August 17th, 2023

The agenda for this meeting is based upon user schedule 1.8.0, please cf. here. Please note the current injector schedule which contains information about MDs, Technical stops, etc. and can be found here.

Next user meeting:
For week 34 on Thursday August 24th, 2023 10:30 CEST
Meeting room: 874/1-011 (CERN)

News from the PS & SPS Physics Coordinator (M. Jaekel + D. Lazic)

PS and SPS Physics Coordination:
August 4 to August 14: Martin Jaekel
August 15 to August 20: Dragoslav Lazic
August 20 to August 23: Martin Jaekel

EURO-LABS TA:
Email to all requestors have been sent out, please wait for Martin’s return for the replies to your inquiries.

Schedule version 1.8 is fairly similar to the version 1.7.1 except for the addition of LHCb + SND run in H8 and the parasitic HERD run in parallel to the CMS HGCAL run in H4.

News from the Facilities Operations Meeting (FOM) (D. Lazic)

There was a rather serious leak in PS Booster that required an immediate intervention. The affected coil got replaced on Wednesday 2023.08.16. The overnight operation was done with only three rings, while the fourth was conditioned.

An immediate consequence is that the dedicated MD planned for Wednesday was tentatively moved to Week 34.

Preview of MDs:

Week 33

• Dedicated SPS MD canceled becuse of the PSB intervention
• Long parallel MD (LHC intensity increase): Thursday and Friday

Week 34:

• Dedicated SPS MD tentatively scheduled for Wednesday unless there are problems with HiRadMat run

Intensity split and wobbling

No wobbling changes requested

Intensities:

T2 = 50
T4 = 48 / T10 = 27
T6 = 35

PS Machine Report (Alex Huschauer)

• availability down to 87% due to largest downtime yesterday Wednesday (PSB intervention)
• Reminder of the EAST proton sharing limits mentioned on the slides uploaded to Indico
• very good performance for beams to all destinations

SPS Machine Report (Kevin Li)

• Excellent availability last week (~94%); EBC running routinely now
• Largest downtime yesterday Wednesday due to PSB intervention ~20 hours --> availability down to 87%

• Difficulties with 800 MHz close to fixed - final tweaks being implemented
• Thursday and Friday this week long parallel MD
• HiRadMat coming in next week
• Dedicated MD tentitavely scheduled for Wednesday in case HiRadMat finishes

Safety / Radiation Protection (J. Devine)

• Helmets! A reminder: When you are in your experimental area you must wear a helmet. We have stopped many people in the last week working in their zones without helmets.

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nToF (M. Bacak)

Running physics according to programme:

• EAR1: 243Am(n,f): last week (swap of experiments Tuesday morning)
• EAR1-NEL: R2E
• EAR2: 26Al(n,a) & (n,p): running stable for 7 more weeks
• NEAR: idle, receiving equipment next week

Proton beam:

• Excellent as usual
• Back to nominal intensities on all beam types (TOF: 800-850e10 & EAST: 300-350e10). Thanks again for the miniTOF@10e10 - coming back again in October

East Area Beam Status (N. Charitonidis)

T09: Smooth operation for TechnoCLS with the MDX 85 installed for the last week. The magnet T09.DHZ045 has been reconnected in pulsed mode. The converter has been checked and its working fine. Many thanks to EPC.
T10: Last weekend, the intensity on the East_N target has been increased by the PS operators after discussion / request by the T10 users. The intensity on the target is limited to 30 units as specified in the East Area design, both for safety and equipment reasons, and should not be exceeded. Otherwise, smooth operation.
T11: No user.

East Area Users Tour de Table

T8 Main: IRRAD CHARM (F. Ravotti by e-mail)

Excellent week, no issue with operation. Weekly intensity level again among the highest delivered to T8 in 2023, thanks! :) (~2.3e16 p/w, see plot below). Beam alignment and center on both X- and Y-axis, under control (The number of spills centered within +/- 2mm on the horizontal plane > 91% and improved w.r. previous week).

During the access on Wednesday, we exchanged the dosimetry and replaced samples for most of the long-term users: TE-MSC [including N2 experiment], ATLAS ITk Pixel [scanning table]. Removed optic fibers lines in preparation for the new SY-BI experiment next week. In CHARM we modified BE-CEM and TE-MPE setups and installed setup with Pressure Switches (EP-DT). Access ended 12:30.

Upcoming access, next week.

T9 Outgoing Main: TECHNO CLS (M Soldani)

We finished removing our equipment and left the area to the next users early on Wednesday morning. Overall, our two-week long beamtime proved a great success, as we were able to carry out the characterisation of three of our crystalline samples. Many thanks for the excellent – as always – operation of the beamline.

T9 Main: NP06 ENUBET (A. Longhin / F. Terranova)

• 2 weeks (Wed 16 – Tue 29)
• test of the ENUBET tagger (3.5 t iron-plastic sampling calorimeter): linearity, energy resolution, PID, pile-up tolerance.
• same as 2022 but upgraded hardware (1200 channels, x 3 wrt last year, upgraded DAQ)
• Beam requirements: neg. other (1.0 - 5.0 GeV/c), neg. pure e (1.0 5.0 GeV/c), reusing beam files from 2022
• tagger shipped to CERN on Aug 7, moved to the East-Hall on Aug 14, craned in the experimental area on Aug 16.
• final cabling is ongoing, safety clearance visit planned for today at 16:00 (ISIEC 973).
• Parasitic test EP 3DET
• A big thank you to CERN staff managing the reception/internal transportation and installation of the setup very efficiently!

T10 Outgoing Main: ALICE TOF (Yongwook Baek)

• 4 different MRPCs tested using STD and Eco gas
• Had a bad connection problem on our flat cable, after fixing it, data taking done smoothly
• LRG chamber: high current, need more time to stabilize
• Operating HV(Eco) = HV(STD)+1.5 kV
• Efficiency > 93%
• Time resoluiton: 70~100 ps for STD, 90~100 ps for Eco
• Detailed analysis ongoing
  

T10 Main: ALICE ITS3 (P. Martinengo / M Suljic)

15/08: Installation, safety inspection at 15:00, stable datataking from 17:30 until beam stop for intervention
16/08: No beam, left the setup in running mode to continue DAQ as soon as beam is back
17/08: Discovered that we got no beam as T9-10 was left in open access (beam stopper-in). Maarten closed the aread at 10:00.

T10 Incoming Main: EIC DRICH - Week 34 (M. Contalbrigo)

The EIC dRICH project is focused on the develop of a dual-radiator ring-imaging Cherenkov detector for the future Electron-Ion collider at BNL, US.
The dRICH prototype is a gas vessel with in front an aerogel layer and a detector box. A set of mirrors focused the Cherenkov light generated by the two radiators into the same instrumented area. The equipment has been already in use at T10, the safety hazard are limited and already known.
The main goal of the test-beam is to study the resolution, with various aerogel samples, different photo-detectors (multi-anode PMTs and SiPM matrices), and the use of single or double radiators.
We count on the beam Cherenkov detectors to tag the beam particle types, and plan to change the low-pressure detector gas from Neon to CO2 on the 24th afternoom, to move from electron-ID to hadron-ID.

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Outgoing AWAKE (Giovanni Zevi Della Porta)

Summary of the week: very reliable proton beam and vapor source

(*) Difficult beam conditions on Thursday: changes in proton bunch length (tracked down to SPS 800 MHz cavity being off) and bunch size (tracked to PS). Both solved by the end of the day.
(**) Plasma source went to automatic cool-down on Friday due to a faulty over-temperature-controller (OTC). Two more OTC failed during the run, requiring hardware interventions in rack gallery. Issue to be followed up before the next proton run.

Details on data taking (every dataset at both 1E11 and 3E11 intensity):

• Monday-Tuesday: plasma density steps starting from 1.5E14/cm3. Steps of [0, 3, 6, 9] % at 1.25 m and 4.25 m
• Thursday-Sunday: plasma density steps starting from 4E14/cm3. Steps of [0, 5] % at 1.75m. Then steps of 3% and 6% at [1.25, 2.25, 3.25, 4.25] m
• Thursday-Friday: electron+proton datasets for Cherenkov Diffraction Radiation BPM R&D

Incoming HiRadMat - Week 34 (A. Goillot)

North Area Beam Status

Beamlines H2, H4, H6, H8 (N. Charitonidis)

H2: Normal operation, the beam movement issue still present. Up to 2h test is required for further investigations. Agreed during the meeting to tentatively schedule the test for Monday. The exact time to be agreed with EPC experts and communicated to the users by e-mail.
H4: Normal operation.
H6: Little time required for alignment after wobbling change but then normal operation. Switch back was quicker. Thank you to the users for in H6 for their understanding on this interuption.
H8: Wobbling change on request of H8 users on Thursday 10 August (-300 GeV/c in H8, -120 GeV/c in H6) and put back on Monday 14 August (+180 GeV/c in H8, +120 GeV/c in H6). During setup of the 300 GeV/c beam, a brief check resulted in an immediate observation of electrons at -288 GeV/c, confirming the much improved operation of the line following the removal of the VXSS chamber in March 2023. Good operation overall.

Beamlines P42-K12 and M2 (N. Charitonidis)

M2: No user. Changeover ongoing.
P42/K12: Good operation. Some small vacuum degradation observed in the first vacuum sector of K12, but nothing to worry about.

North Area Users Tour de Table

Beamlines P42-K12 and M2

K12-P42 Main: NA62 (Viacheslav Duk)

• Smooth operation during 10-17.08.
• The intensity was not very stable during 10-14.08 (22±2 at T10)
• Stable intensity during 14-17.08 (22±1 at T10)
• There was a 3h stop due to network switch failure (13.08). Thanks to IT for the prompt intervention.

M2 Parallel: AMBER (Please Add Your Name Here)

M2 Parallel: MUONE (Carlo Ferrari)

We are ready to install the ECAL and three tracking stations, next monday 21st. Safety inspection scheduled for the 24th afternoon. We would like to take beam the 24th evening or night, if it is fine with Amber.

H2

H2 Outgoing Main: NA61 SHINE (Eric Zimmerman)

NA61 completed its summer 2023 data set on Wednesday. This data set was part of the program of hadron production measurements motivated by systematic errors in neutrino beam flux calculations. The following primary measurements were taken:

• 60 GeV K+ + C: 86.2M target-in, 51.5M target-out
• 120 GeV p + Ti: 102.5M target-in, 9.2M target-out
• 120 GeV p + C: 75.5M target-in, 6.9M target-out

Special runs for systematics study were taken during periods with no vertex magnet or partial detector operational.

Many thanks to CERN beam and experimental support personnel for helping us maximize the operation this year.

H2 Main: HIKE SAC (M. Soldani)

We’ve had almost every element of our setup installed and operational by Wednesday morning. We finished setting everything up as soon as we got the beam and we’re currently proceeding through our physics programme.

H2 Incoming Main: LHCB ECAL - Week 34 (Please Add Your Name Here)

H4

H4 Outgoing Main: CMS ZDC EM (Sorina Popescu)

• finished our physics program on August 14 midnight
• continued untill August 16 @ 7:00 am with other physics subjects
• excelent beam and support from SPS team (Nikos&team) many thanks to all. We profit from good beam.
• morning August 16 we unistall evrything, finished at 9:30 Faser Nu got in

H4 Main: FASER NU (Ken Ohashi)

• We installed detectors and electronics yesterday.
• Safety visit at 16:00 yesterday
• We are checking the beam using the EM calorimeter.
• We are working on the EM calorimeter now. We will start our emulsion program from this evening.
• If everything go smoothly, we would like to remove the beam pipes on the Goliath magnet and operate Goliath magnet.

H4 Incoming Parallel: RD51 - Week 34 (Yorgos Tsipolitis, Eraldo Oliveri)

• 8 setups, 1 of them only for first week and 2 of them only for second week (2 safety visits planned)
• Beams: mostly muons high rate, few shifts pions high rate, eventually one shift pions (~8jh) for rate scan (to be confirmed).
• GOLIATH: 2 shifts of 8h in second week - slots to be defined with GIF++
• Flammable gases: Ne/CF4/C2H6 80/10/10 - no changes compared to previous test beam
• Installation (to be synch with FASER NU) starting on wednesday 23rd morning asap. Survey for alignment planned at 1:30pm. Safety visiti at 4pm. Area expected to be closed around 6pm (depsite the parallel MD).
• Thanks to all North Area teams for the support

H4 Incoming Main: GIF++ - Week 34 (Martin)

• sorry, I’m away from CERN today

Most setups (except one) already installed and ready in the bunker. Last setup will be installed Monday morning. Slightly reduced participation, since two setups completed their program alread during the last beam weeks.

so all fine for GIF++, no requirements from our side.
We will agree the special shifts with RD51 when we are back next week.

I will present the new list of useres in next weekly meeting.

H6

H6 Outgoing Main: ATLAS ITK STRIP (Jiri Kroll - not present during meeting, prepared slides and minutes)

• First of all we would like to thank a lot for providing and very stable beam with reasonable parameters
  • beam intensity of 1.5E5 particles per spill
  • beam profile slightly bigger than 10 mm x 10 mm
• Average cluster multiplicity observed in the indivdiual Mimosa planes of the Aconite telescope was typically below 20 - should be completely fine for track reconstruction.
• We had two DUTs installed in the MPI cold box - ITk strip R1 module (irradiated at IRRAD) and ITk pixel RD53B module
  • originally planned R0 module was not included as there were problems to properly deplete the sensor
  • Aconite telescope included 6 Mimosa planes and 1 FE-I4 plane (for measurement of detection efficiency)
• We were able to see quite nice correlations between the individual detectors
  • however, very probably the offline resynchronization will have to be done
• To be able to run ITk strip R1 module with the reasonable noise, we had to cool the inner environment of the MPI cold bow to temperatures below -65 C
  • Observed increase of the R1 noise for leakage currents exceeding certain level is currently being investigated by the collaboration
  • The system of chillers prepared by Andre R. was working perfectly, thanks a lot for this great help
• Slide 7 shows that we have measured several full threshold scans on all 4 strip segments
  • standard threshold scans with 250k events per threshold and 37 thresholds
  • high-statistics threshold scans with 500k events per threshold and 37 thresholds
  • the main goal is to identify window of thresholds, for which the detection efficiency is above 99%, while the noise occupancy is below 1E-3
• Final actions done on August 16
  • we have moved all our stuff back to car before 10am
  • actovation of devices positioned in the beam or close to the beam were checked by the RP group and corresponding shipping requests were created
  • activated R0 and R1 modules were transported by the RP group back to IRRAD

H6 Main: ATLAS ITK PIXEL (Andre Rummler)

Goal is to focus on quad measurements this week. Extending cooling system from 1 quad to max. 4 quads if space allows. Manifolds installed; secondary cooling system re-installed; got delayed to unforseen issues including several different versions of the existing frames of which one needs more tapped holes. Trying to do it this morning and then resuming installation. Hopefully finished this afternoon sometime. Saftey visit had to be delayed twice; thanks for accomodating this unforeseen development; we have this time far more installations of a new kind than usual. Might not be able to join the meeting.

H6 Incoming Main: MONOLITH - Week 34 (Please Add Your Name Here)

H6 Incoming Parallel: EP PIXEL - Week 34 (Justus Braach)

• Resume to high-intensity beam operation needed for testing small pixel detectors
• Devices under test will be
  • H2M, new “hybrid-to-monolithic” technology demostrator: main objective
  • FASTPIX: if possible one day/night of measurements
• Continuation of commissioning of hardware and software upgrades providing detailed monitoring observables of the telescope operation

H8

H8 Outgoing Main: SND@LHC HCal (marco.dallavalle@cern.ch)

The test beam experiment was very successfull. The data taking program was completely fulfilled. Golden mining for the studies on hadronic showers in the SND@LHC calorimeter.

There was a chilly moment, two nights ago, when the external disk stopped functioning, and not all data had been copied on eos. This is over and now all data are safe on eos.

Thanks to Suat Ozkorucuklu (QFIB) and Maarten van Dijk that made possible to exploit the parasitic time at the best for commissiong. No access during the main user week was necessary, besides when changing configuration of the target iron blocks.

Thanks Maarten and Anna Baratto for optimizing the beams for us (transverly broad and lowerish intensities).

Thanks to SPS coordinator and deputies for agreeing on the wobbling changes, and thanks to the colleagues of the experiments that accepted it.

The SND@LHC Hcal equipment is uninstalled and RP cleared. The SciFi tracker will stay (Ettore.Zaffaroni@cern.ch). The iron blocks have been removed.

H8 Main: RE1 AMS L0 (Matteo Duranti - INFN Perugia)

• we see the beam since this morning. Thanks Maarten to having set it really early in the morning;
• we have a “instantaneous” rate of 600 Hz (during the single spill we have per cycle), so 3k events per spill. We asked Maarten for a doubling of the rate;
• the beam is quite narrow (2 mm horizontal and 5 mm vertical, 1 sigma - gaussian fit to the peak). We have ~ 10 ×

10 cm2, so we would like a broader beam to “illuminate” most of the detector. Maarten is changing the beam to muons right now to have it much wider. The rate has also increased and now we have the desired ~ 5k particles per spill. Current (hadron) situation:

• hadron vertical beam profile:
• hadron horizontal beam profile
  Note: the detectors have 110 μ

m readout strips so the vertical sigma (peak gaussian fit) is ~ 50 × 110 μ

•  
  • m ~ 5.5 mm and the horizontal is ~ 2 mm

H8 Parallel: LHCb + SND (Ettore Zaffaroni)

• Both setups installed and ready to take data

H8 Incoming Main: LHCB - Week 34 (Loris Martinazzoli)

TimePix4 telescope to be installed on Wednesday. If possible, we would like to have runs with higher-than or lower-than-usual rate.

H8 Incoming Parallel: SELDOM - Week 34 (Please Add Your Name Here)

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Parasitic Users

T9: EP 3DET (Please Add Your Name Here)

H8: PAN (Daniil Sukhonos, UNIGE)

We have issues with one of the frontend boards. We plan to fix it today and start data taking.

H8: CMS RPC (Please Add Your Name Here)

H8: LHCb Plus SND (Ettore Zaffaroni)

H8: STRAW TRACKER RD (Please Add Your Name Here)

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AoB

1 News from the PS & SPS Physics Coordinator

Speaker: Eva Barbara Holzer (CERN)

2 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)

PS_report_week33.pdf

PS_report_week33.pptx

3 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)

4 Safety / Radiation Protection

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

5 nTOF

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

6 East Area Beam Status

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

7 East Area Users Tour de Table

8 Outgoing AWAKE

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

9 Incoming HiRadMat (Week 34)

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

10 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 North Area Users Tour de Table

12 AOB