PS-SPS Users Meeting for Week 17 held on 24 April 2025

Coordinator for week 17 & 18 : Paolo Martinengo

News from the PS & SPS Physics Coordinator

M.R. Jäkel, P. Martinengo

Reminder: Beam time exceeding the limits of 2 weeks PS beam time and 1 week SPS beam time per year need the approval of one of these CERN committees: SPSC, LHCC, DRDC, INTC, RB or IEFC. Consider joining a DRD collaboration, if you require more beam time.

Target intensities:
See below or via ASM (accessible from within the CERN network).

News from the Facilities Operations Meeting (FOM)

Upcoming SPS MDs next weeks :

https://be-dep-ea.web.cern.ch/content/md-planning-north-area
Dedicated SPS MDs - if not anounced differently - are taking place from 8:00 to 18:00

PS Machine Report (Yann Dutheil)

• Overall good availability >97%
• Main faults
  • trip of EAST converters following CV issue, being followed up by CV
  • RF synchro issue between PSB-PS Wednesday eve, solved by a fec reboot

SPS Machine Report (Michael Schenk)

• Availability (Thu - Thu): ~96%
• Main SPS faults
  • MSE6 cooling circuit: change of filters twice (~2.5 h)
  • MDLV.2116 trip (~1.5 h)
• This week
  • Otherwise stable physics production for NA
  • Since Monday: AWAKE Run 1 (2 weeks)
  • Wednesday: HiRadMat preparation (finalized by SPS-OP this morning)
• Next
  • NA physics
  • Today: AWAKE test (~1 h) & long parallel MD until 18:00
  • Wk 18: Continuation of AWAKE Run
  • Wk 19: HiRadMat Run 1

Safety (James Devine)

We have been very busy in the EP safety office recently due to follow up on recent incidents, combined with the restart of physics activities across the accelerator complex. If you don’t hear from us in response to your ISIEC submission, please contact EP TH Safety and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Reminder - here is the link for ISIEC submission. You will need to log in before you can access the page.

TT42 Main: n_TOF (Alice Manna, Paolo M Milazzo)

Week 17
(Very) smooth data taking on:
• EAR1: C6D6 detector for the study of the 97,98Mo(n, g) reaction
• EAR2: STED array for the study of the 124Sn(n, g) reaction
• NEAR: Study of radiation hardness for a diamond detector

No long interventions are planned up to Week 19.

Protons received

East Area Beam Status (D. Banerjee)

T9: No issues to report. Good operation.
T10: Good operation.
T11: No user.

East Area Users Tour de Table

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

Very good week. The weekly intensity to T8 reached almost 3.3e16 p/w. This is very good since most the current IRRAD experiments target to exceed the 1E17 p/cm2. TID generated by the CHARM target at the reference position is above 600 Gy.

Note that, from this week, the weeky refrence value in the plots has been updated according to the higher intensity of the EAST_T8 spill (e.g. 2.2E16 p/w for 60E10 pps --> 2.75E16 p/w for 80E10 pps). This value is now also used for the planning of the experiments in IRRAD and CHARM.

Excellent beam centering: ~>98% of the spills within +/- 2mm on both axes.

During the weekely acces of Wednesday April 23rd, some samples from the running experiments (TE-MSC, EP-DT, DRD3 and LHCb TimeSPOT) were removed or replaced - the rest continue. In CHARM we installed new setups by ALICE FoCal (SiPMs) and exchanged samples by BE-CEM. Beam back with standard conditions. Next access will be on Wednesday April 30th.

From the beginning of the year:

T9 Main: WCTE (M. Hartz)

Mostly stable data-taking over the past week.

• For momentum settings of 300-320 MeV/c, positive and negative charge, we have collected >20,000 muon candidates and >10,000 pion candidates for each setting.

• We made a couple of tests of our data acqusition for radioactive sources that required no beam to T10 to avoid background. Thanks to ALICE users in T10 for accommodating these tests. Took calibration runs on Wednesday with difused laser source and NiCf source.

• Completed development of a trigger that will allow us to measure muon and pion induced 9Li production, which requires collecting data for 0.5 seconds after the spill:
  

• We have developed a method to veto on the T10 spill using the signal from the PLS module in the T9 control room, which should allow us to take radioactive source calibration data while T10 is receiving beam. Plan to test this mode this afternoon.

For next the week, expect mostly stable data-taking with short interruptions for configuration changes:

• Friday afternoon (probable) we will install a trigger upgrade that should allow for data collection at higher rates.
• Saturday, we will switch to our tagged photon configuration (~3 hr)
• Wednesday, we will switch back to the charged particle configuration (~3 hr)

Loading with Gd is likely in week of May 12.

T10 Main: ALICE_TIMING (Manuel Colocci)

Installation and alignment done yesterday (SiPMs and LGADs).
Data taking last night.

T10 Incoming Main: ALICE_ITS3 (Paolo Martinengo)

We took data over the Easter break, detector alredy in T10

North Area Beam Status (D. Banerjee)

H2/H4/H6/H8: Smooth operation.
M2: No beam. Installation ongoing.
P42/K12: Good operation. Nothing to report.

TT66 Outgoing Main: HIRADMAT (Please insert your name)

TT41 Main: AWAKE (M. Bergamaschi)

Proton bunch aligned on refrence trajectory at plasma source.
Tests ongoing with SPS RF experts to sset correct bunch rotation so longitudinal profile.
Issue with IR laser alignment solved on Tuesday.

North Area Users Tour de Table

H2 Incoming Main: LHCB (Daniele Manuzzi)

• Goal: characterisation of timing detector based on MCP technology
  • particular interest in prototypes of radiation-resistant photocathodes
  • prototype in small vacuum chamber (active area π(2.5)2π(2.5)2 cm22)
  • main operations:
    • change of prototype configuration (photocathod materials, distance between MCPs and photocathode)
    • voltage scan
• Ancillary detectors:
  • a pair of reference MCPs -> reference time
  • Scintilltors -> trigger
  • Delay Wire Chambers -> tracking, monitoring
• Vacuum: chain of two pumps
  1. rigidly connected to the vacuum chamber
  2. placed on the floor and conncted with pipe
• Picture from last year testbeam at PS:
  
• Beam:
  • electrons < 100 GeV/c⁠ ⁠⁠
  • hadrons > 80 GeV/c ⁠⁠
  • ⁠⁠muons
  • ⁠⁠Rate ~<10 kHz
  • ⁠⁠size: 1-2 cm diam FWHM
• Infrastructure:
  • ⁠DESY table
  • Rack next to the table

H4 Outgoing Main: GIF++ Paolo Martinengo

Quite smooth data taking, all users happy
Back to source-only operation

H4 Main: NA64e (Laura Molina Bueno)

We started installation yesterday at 8 am and we plan to be done by tomorrow. We are still trying to agree with safety the best time for our instection to get safety clearence for the weekend.

There was an issue with our door yesterday that still needs to be fixed.

H6 Main: ATLAS_HGTD (D. Boumediene, S. Manzoni)

• Setup:
  • Good beam conditions
  • Using a single chiller for cooling was sufficient to reach -30.
  • Access:
    • Up to now needed for changing DUTs only
    • Expect one access this afternoon for installing multimodule setup, can be a few hours
• 3 goals for test beam:
  • Test hybrids (done)
  • Test single modules (ongoing)
  • Test multi-modules (to do)

H6 Incoming Main: ATLAS_ITK_PIXEL (Andre Rummler)

Plan is to measure for the first time a triplet (ITkPix V1.1) for which a new holder needs to be tested. For the moment there will be two unirradiated triplets and next test beam an irradiated which is currently undergoing testing in Barcelona. Preparations are still ongoing:

• material procurement for the triplet holder and other
• as reported last week the Lauda chiller broke down; a lot of processes were started to get the chiller out next Wednesday for shipment to the repair centre (handling request, TREC, offer received) and to get a replacement chiller from b180 (new AIDAinnova cold box chiller) into H6A (transport planned for Friday, I disconnected, flushed and emptied the chiller); lifting on platform on Wednesday will not be easy; likely will need extended setup period Wednesday/Thursday
• ISIEC late, sorry, to be submitted today

H6 Outgoing Parallel: AIDAINNOVA_WP6 (Vagelis Gkougkousis)

• Running long runs with very limited access requirements until Friday, extending period up to Wednesday, April 30th.
• Infastructure used: AIDA telescope in H6B and testing carbonated trench-isolated LGADs, with fluences up to 2.5×10152.5×1015.
• Good beam conditions and stable system, would like to increase the rate to x4 of current delivered (104104 particles curently per spill). In discussion with other usres for adjustments after SPS User’s meeting.
• Long access on Friday morning with several smaller though the entire day for DUT exhange / re-alignement.
• Extremely good data quality with main goal to accumulate increase statistics (limit 300 events/spil with 1.5 million events target per run).
• Fully automated system with completely remote operation adn shifts.

Extremely small ROI (0.9 mm X 1.2 mm): 

H6 Parallel: ATLAS_AFP_TOF (Tomáš Komárek)

• Ref timing SiPMs at standard 10ps and ToF train combination at nice 16-17ps
• PicoTDC now running fine and stable following firmware tuning
• Single channel resolution < 10 ps
  • totally uncalibrated!
  • high res mode now essentially equivalent to low res mode (12ps bins)
  • already double the precision of old HPTDC
• We expect much improvement with PicoTDC once calibrated, working on that today
• We will not need wider beam as we originally expected, fine as is
     

H8 Main: LHCB (Federico Ronchetti)

• Ready to start our second week
• No change in the setup
• Some issues with data taking that need to be understood
• Since there is no upcoming user in our area in the next weeks, can we leave our setup there util the weeks of the other LHCb users in PPE138? If needed we can move our setup from the beam (it’s installed on a DESY table).

H8 Incoming Main: SHIP CAL (Sebastian Ritter)

Testing of SHiP ECAL pointing capabilities and energy resolution. PID studies with HCAL in second week planned.

• ISEIC submitted. Still documentation missing for mechanical equipment. Currently collecting all information to submit in one go later today.
• ECAL will be handed to logistics company today to be onsite by tuesday
• HCAL still under constructuion. Goal is to get it to Prevessin by May 5. Setting up planned for May 6. (to be confirmed)
• Beam setup: discussed with Maarten yesterday. Will answer mail with completed notes on requests after the meeting. Very full days atm, sorry.
• Access: we will need high frequency key access in first half of TB
• Special requests: beam wobbling on May 12.+13.

K12-P42 Main: NA62 (Roberto Piandani)

Smooth data taking especially during the week end… Spill quality and stability a bit worse now with respect the week-end and last week.
We are trying to understand the Intensity we want to run using data collected with our detector… meeting with Johannes after the meeting

M2 Main: MUONE (Aldo Arena)

The installation is progressing. The 29th of April the ECAL will be installed together with the Desy table.
The 30th of April we plan to have the safety clearance for partial setup (the request has been submitted but no answer yet) and start with 40GeV electron run for calibration purposes.
The week of the 5th of May will be dadicated to finalize the installation.

H4 Outgoing Parasitic: STRAW_TRACKER_RD (Temur Enik, Katerina Kuznetsova)

three different straw readouts to test:

• VMM3a with external digitization (first version of DUNE STT readout prototype, first test with beams)
• NA64 straw readout (simplified DAQ)
• synchronization run - StrawTracker reference tracking + Atlas ASD
  Some progress:
  

Very useful run, a lot of problems identified, to be debugged at H8 beam dump
Many thanks to GIF++ Coordination and User teams for comfortable running in the parasitic mode and to ALTAS sMDT Michigan group for ASD DAQ support

H8 Parasitic: STRAW_TRACKER_RD (Please insert your name)

Moved to H8 beam dump on Wednesday, work to be continued from Monday next week.

• homework from the H4 datataking
• readout with custom PA+SAMPIC (SHiP motivated)

M2 Parasitic: AMBER (Please insert your name)

AoB

Minutes by the respective speakers, edited by M. Jäkel, M. Malkin, and M. Schwinzerl