PS-SPS Users Meeting for Week 22 held on 28 May 2025

Coordinator for this week: Martin Jäkel

News from the PS & SPS Physics Coordinator

M.R. Jäkel, P. Martinengo

Reminder: Beam time (main user) 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. Endorsement of beam time by a scientific committie does not guarantee the beam time can be scheduled.

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

News from the Facilities Operations Meeting (FOM)

Pressure rise in T2 TBID observed after increase in intensity sent to T2.

• TE/VSC has rechecked the BIS interlock directly connected to pump for 1e-6 mbar. It has been agreed among all experts to reestablish the 100 units on T2 and monitor the behaviour of the device.

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 (Alex Huschauer)

• access on Friday afternoon replace Finemet cavity gap relays
• electrical glitch on Saturday
  • beams impacted, issue with 200 MHz cavity gain settings, adjustment of all beams required, impact on delivered beam intensity
  • fixed on Monday by putting back a circuit breaker
• AD beam:
  • still observing variations of beam size on target with impact on yield
  • overall less losses in the ring and TT2 than in 2024, but increased in FTA
• SFTPRO:
  • new beam production scheme in the PSB in operation since Monday, mainly to reduce the transverse emittances
  • from a PS point of view the changes seem transparent
• TOF beam:
  • overall very good delivery
  • controls issue yesterday evening that caused a change of beam position on target and many interlocks for about 1h
• EAST beams
  • as for TOF beams, we are now able to provide a large number of different variants
    • hence, for consistency and knowledge sharing across the CPS crew, we need to improve communication
  • some issues during the last days
    • Communication issue with T9 users on Sunday morning, who requested to switch back to 400 ms spill length, which also implied going to 24 GeV/c and was actually not wanted by the users
      • in general no problem for PS OP, but special requests need to be prepared in advance
      • please make sure that the possible scenarios are clear to the users
    • request to increase T9 intensity from 30 to 50E10
    • Please go through user meeting and/or PS coordination for future requests like that
  • tests in T8 with different energies and species
    • succesfuly sent to T8 protons at 1, 2 GeV, 5, 10, 15 GeV/c and oxygen at 1 GeV/n
• Ion beam tests
  • successful Neon beam test yesterday, as expected working with the same settings as Oxygen

SPS Machine Report (Tom Levens)

• Difficult week, NA availability from Thu-Wed: 64.3%
• Main faults:
  • Electrical glitch on Saturday (5h 22m)
  • Dump kicker issue on Monday early-morning (3h 4m)
  • Inter-turn short on MBB.43530 on Monday/Tuesday (32h 30m)
    • Intervetion (29h 41m)
    • Beam recomissioning (2h 50m)
    • Beam back to NA/AWAKE on Tuesday evening
• Plan:
  • Crab cavity MD today 8h to 18h
  • No long parallel MD tomorrow
  • AWAKE run continues until Sunday
  • HiRadMat run next week

Safety (James Devine)

• Link for ISIEC submission (reminder - login required)
• Reminder - the safety office is closed tomorrow (CERN holiday)
• Training for AUL trip in H8b (EHN1) completed this morning. I am producing a ‘how to’ guide which I will circulate next user meeting.

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

Smooth data taking in all experimental areas, following the heavy intervention of last week.

• EAR1: measurement of Cu(n, tot) reaction, a fission chamber based on 235U samples is used
• EAR2: micromegas detector for the study of 236U(n, f) reaction.
• NEAR: Activation measurements.

East Area Beam Status (B. Rae)

On call phone number: 67500

T9/T10: Smooth operation. One small issue on a collimator on T9. Access needed next Wednesday to check it.
T11: No user.

East Area Users Tour de Table

T8 Main: IRRAD_CHARM (F. Ravotti)

Meeting took place during the Wednesday access slot. Good performance for the past week (see below - updated after the meeting). Monday and Tuesday night MD slots to propagate low momenta and Oxygen ion beams to T8.

T9 Main: WCTE (Blair Jamieson)

Starting on Wed May 21 and completed Friday May 23 loading the water with 0.03% Gd (~75% n capture on Gd) took place. During the loading we took photogrammetry images of the detector to reconstruct LED marker locations – overexposed example image attached. Photogrammetry images were also taken with a set of fast flasing LEDs similar to the ones that will be in Hyper-Kamiokande, and here we demonstrated that our cameras can see these LEDs.

We also found that the Gd loading added bubbles to surfaces in our detector, and we have made various attempts to mitigate the bubbles. We have moved to taking more complete LED calibration data between each beam run, and a daily photo of the inside of the detector.

In this Gd loaded phase we are collecting data to study neutron production and have collected data:

• 0.6, 0.8, 1.0 GeV/c protons to look for neutrons knocked out (small initial sample)
• 0.8, 1.0, 1.2 GeV/c electrons for QE scattering measurement (small initial sample)
• Low energy (-300 to -360 MeV/c) π−π− to study 99Li production on Oxygen and to study 2p-2h nuclear effects with mu-
• Low energy (+300 to +360) MeV/c) π+π+ and μ+μ+ to study 2p-2h and see non-production of 9Li
• We also collected neutron calibration data with an AmBe source, and detector ressponse calibration data with a NiCf source
• The plan for our final week of data is to collect some lepton scattering data from 0.8 to 1.0 Gev/c, to use the tagged photon setup to study photonuclear effects with neutron production, and to take further low energy proton data to look for neutron knockout.

T10 Outgoing Main: Polar-2 (Please insert your name)

T10 Main: P349+ (Dieter Grzonka)

The detectors, a DIRC with plexiglas radiator and Aerogel Cherenkov counter, have been installed. Beam has been setup, adjusted with scintillators and first data taking has started.

T10 Incoming Main: ALICE_ITS3 (Paolo Martinengo)

Set-up in preparation in the lab, will be ready to take beam as planned
will need DESY table + N2

North Area Beam Status (B. Rae)

On call phone number: 67500

H2: Good operation.
H4: Good operation, issue on TAX reading position (potentiometer issue since power cut this weekend), to be repaired during TS.
H6/H8: Good operation.
M2: Good operation, waiting for high intensity on T6 and then do final adjustment if needed.
P42/K12: Re-steered vertically on T10 after the SPS magnet exchange. Otherwise good operation.

TT66 Main: HIRADMAT (Please insert your name)

TT41 Main: AWAKE (Please insert your name)

North Area Users Tour de Table

H2 Outgoing Main: LHCB_ECAL (L. Martinazzoli)

Data taking partially marred by the low beam availability this week. Unfortunately not all the Physics program was concluded.

That aside, thanks to the beam expert for the help and support throughout the past 2 weeks!

H2 Main: NA61_SHINE (Seweryn Kowalski)

We are preparing the detector for this evening’s beam for PSD calibrations and have started preparations for the neutrino measurement, including beamline modifications. No issues so far.

H4 Main: NA64e (Vladimir Poliakov)

Smooth data taking.
We recorded around 72k spills and accumulated around 3.3x10^11 EoT.

H6 Outgoing Main: CERF (T. Lorenzon)

• CERF week dates: Wed 21- Wed 28 May 2025 at PPE126
• CERF: unique field calibration facility in NA H6 for radiation protection instrumentation used at high-energy accelerators
• This year: 12 research groups (9 external, 3 from CERN)
  • Intense schedule, but good management of the available time
  • Great flexibility of the team and users to re-organize the last available hours of beam time (from Tuesday afternoon to this morning 8 AM)
  • Despite the downtime (late Monday - late Tuesday), all users could manage to collect data - they were all satisfied. All in all, good beam over the week!
• Users have left; the CERF team also cleared the area; warning panels on H6 doors also removed.
• The CERF RP team:
  
• On behalf of the CERF team, we would like to thank all CERN teams that contributed to this successful week: engineering and transport team, RP services (sources, radiation monitoring), safety, beam operation, beam physicists in NA, CCC!

H6 Main: DRD3 (Marcos Fernandez)

This is the first DRD3 test beam. Three different groups will use this beam time, sequentially. All of them testing different flavours of timing detector (so called LGADs) for CMS and ATLAS upgrades.

• INFN-To will study study non-irradiated DC coupled LGADs with a resistive layer for signal sharing. Sensors coming from FBK (Italy). They need to replace the coldbox inside the telescope to use their own one. This is not optimal and will be changed for future testbeams. Period: 28 May - 1 June.
• IFCA-Spain will continue a study started under the AIDAINNOVA umbrella, with so-called Trench Isolated LGADs (FBK), irradiated to a fluence of 2.5e15 n_{eq}/cm^2. They will place back the “standard” coldbox and make use of the AIDA telescope for tracking. Period: 1-7 June.
• Brown-university will study AC-coupled LGADs making use of tracking data to train machine learning methods to calculate the impact position of particles. Period: 8-11 June. More details in the picture below:

In parallel, the ETROC ETL setup (parasitic, outside the AIDA telescope) will continue taking data (HV scans) with a 4 sensor configuration inside a suitcase-setup.

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

Main goals:

• Measure the first set of HGTD pre-production modules at cold, testing multiple modules simultaneously.
• Measure a set of pre-production hybrids (ASIC + LGAD) at cold temperature.
• Tests of PEB and Felix-based acquisition

DAQ setup: acquisition system will follow a configuration similar to the previous test beam based on
EUDAQ2, MCP at 2500V as timing reference
Cooling with ethanol chiller for cold box cooling

Beam setup, same as in the previous test beams:

• 120 GeV pions
• ~10k particles/spill
• Possibly a slightly wider beam profile when testing full modules

ISIEC submitted on 28 May. Clearance was requested for 04/06/2025 17:00

H8 Main: LHCB (L. Martinazzoli)

Data taking proceeding smoothly. We are happy with the present high-intensity beam, even better than usual.
Thanks to the beam experts for the support!

Yesterday in the evening we needed to monitor the volume level in the gas bottle located in bat. 907. We could not find any way to check it but to send an e-mail to the gas service, to which we haven.
A system allowing users to monitor the gas levels would be very helpful

H8 Incoming Main: UA9 (L.S. Esposito on behalf of F. Galluccio)

UA9 will set up the configuration with 3 goniometers and 6-plane tracker.

• Start installing on Wednesday June the 4th at 10:00, or as soon as the beam pipes are removed;
• Should finish the installation latest by 17:00 for the safety check.
• Start of commissioning either on Wednesday night or on Thursday morning.

First planned measurements:

• Characterisation of recently received crystals

K12-P42 Main: NA62 (Michal Zamkovsky)

We had some problems with the GTK beam spectrometer cooling, piquet on site on Saturday and experts continued the work on Monday and today.
Poor beam quality on Sunday afternoon and evening.
Steering on our beam line performed by Johannes after the restart yesterday - thank you!
Very good beam quality after yesterday’s restart.
Most of the issues identified by the safety team have already been addressed.

M2 Main: MUONE (Please insert your name)

H6 Incoming Parasitic: DRD3 DIAMOND (Please insert your name)

H8 Parasitic: STRAW_TRACKER_RD (Please insert your name)

H8 Parasitic: ATLAS_TILECAL (Please insert your name)

H8 Parasitic: CMS_FSC(Suat Ozkorucuklu)

Forward Shower Counters, need to be tested before instalition at TS1.
Main reason for the test beam is to Measure response with MIP, Choose HV and calibration.
Parasitic to UA9!

M2 Parasitic: AMBER (Nikolay Anifmov)

No important updates.
Several interventions were carried out in the area during the beam shutdowns from Monday until Tuesday afternoon, including work by the safety group.

AoB

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