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PS/SPS User Meeting
Description
Minutes of Meeting
The template for the minutes of meeting for the weekly PS & SPS users meeting can always be found using this link: https://codimd.web.cern.ch/0aHs5uqmSPuII76-SaaQdg
Please pre-fill them before the meeting with a summery of your activities!
PS/SPS User Meeting
PS-SPS Users Meeting for Week 25 held on 19 June 2025
Coordinator for this week: Martin Jäkel
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Current PS / SPS User schedule v1.2.1
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Injector schedule (v1.2, 16.05.) for 2025 is available here: https://edms.cern.ch/document/3057281/latest
EuroLabs : Application are open. Please submit your requests.
Power cut information:
- Power cut announcement for the 23rd June in the North Area, this will affect EHN1, EHN2 and ECN3. A power cut notice (NdC) is available here: https://impact-ng.cern.ch/notedecoupure/2566
News from the PS & SPS Physics Coordinator
M.R. Jäkel, P. Martinengo
Physics Run 2025 Information
- Physics p+ NA Ends 24.11.2025
- Physics Pb Ion NA 28.11-08.12
- Physics PB Ion EA 17.11-08.12
Newly vacant beam slots :
- SPS H4 - W40 (beam restrictions apply)
Please contact SPS.Physics.Coordinator@cern.ch if you want to apply for any of theses slots.
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 or RB. Endorsment of DRDC or IEFC is a pre-requirement for longer beam time that still needs SPSC approval. Endorsement of beam time by the 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)
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 (Marc Delrieux)
- Friday 13/06 : circuit breaker affecting power converters for AD, TOF and T9 secondary
- AD in PS : radial position drifting with time (under investigation). On sunday 15/05 the drift was high enough to lose the PS-AD synchro
- Monday 15/06, several short beam interruptions due to trips of cavity 10-81. Spare 10-11 had issues as well for a short while.
- F61.BHZ025 A/B (master-slave) trips due to FGC issue. FGCs replaced on Tuesday 16/06. Still a few trips since then (less frequent though)
- Wednesday 17/06 17h15 : POPS trip, 2h30 downtime. Cooling issue, running in degraded mode since then
- MDs/tests in T8 with 1 GeV, 2 GeV, 10 GEV/c, 12 GeV/c protons and 1 GeV/n O4
SPS Machine Report (Carlo Zannini)
- Th-Th availability ~73%
- Impact of magnet vacuum leak
- 17h LEIR downtime due to a cavity issue delaying ion commissioning
- Issues experienced in week24 strongly impacted ion commissioning. Several acitivity had to be performed in week25
- Ion commissioning on Tuesday turned out to be dedicated
- Difficulties with SFTion which took much longer than expected. Commissioning had to continue on Wednesday morning
- LHCMDs ongoing (very frequent LHC fillings)
Safety (J. Devine)
- See power cut update for Monday 23rd June above.
- Reminder about appropriate clothing; in beam line areas please wear long trousers, safety shoes and your helmet + dosimeter. Full guidance can be found (in English and French) in the applicable HSE memo here: https://edms.cern.ch/document/2193556/1
- Here is the link to submit your ISIEC forms (remember, if your beam time is longer than three weeks please contact us for an ISD form which permits you to run for longer than 3 weeks). https://ep-th-safety.web.cern.ch/isiec-safety-clearance
TT42 Main: n_TOF (Alice Manna, Paolo M Milazzo)
- EAR1: End of the first (n, tot) transmission measurement at n_TOF.
– The beam line has been brought back to standard configuration.
– Start of a capture measurement on a gasesous sample: 40Ar - EAR2: micromegas detector for the study of 236U(n, f) reaction.
- NEAR: Activation measurements (Ag, Au).
East Area Beam Status (D. Banerjee)
On call phone number: 
67500
General: Installation of the vacuum chamber in F61.BHZ025 planned for Tuesday 24th June.
T9: Good operation. Deinstallation of EBoost planned for Monday with switch to low momentum configuration in T9 for DRD6 by Wednesday.
T10: Good operation.
T11: Hydrogen exhaust pipe and gas inlet pipes now installed from T11 zone to edge of the building in preparation for P349/P371.
East Area Users Tour de Table
T8 Main: IRRAD_CHARM (F. Ravotti / S. Fiore)
Very good week! We received on T8 2.65E16 p/w as shown below, well in line with the intensity we now use to plan the experiments in our irradiation areas. The reference TID in CHARM is also well achieved. Beam centering ~>90% on both axis.
Common interest in exploiting lower energies/momentum beams for irradiation in in T8 IRRAD/CHARM: detector/activation studies, NIEL, etc. (EP), electronics testing (BE/SY), simulation studies (HSE-RP).
On Tuesday afternoon (~1pm-7pm) - MD with low-intensity low-energy proton beams (1 GeV and 10 GeV/c). Successfully perfomed together with SY-STI colleagues measurements with MWPC, Si diode and SRAM to charachterize the beams for electronics testing. Beams also needed, if ready, for the CSBF tests (RP week) at the end of September.
On Wednesday morning “cool-down” MD slot (~3am-8am) with Oxygen ion beam (Si diode and SRAM) for HEARTS.
After the access on Wednesday (~1pm-5pm), calibration run of 12 GeV/c proton beam (2E11 pps) with Al-foils and DD monitors (Si detectors). Irradiation restated for the short week afterwards (next stop is the TS).
On the Wednesday access slot: in IRRAD we removed an ATLAS ITk experiment and we continue all other experiments (ATLAS ITk – Triplet for TE-MSC (polymers in inert gas and ambient air) and epoxy resins in ambient air.
In CHARM we continue experiments by ATLAS RPC and SY-RF, modified setups by BE-CEM.
T9 Main: E+BOOST (Nicola Canale)
Good data taking, we completed our set of measurements at 6 GeV and we are completing right now the 2.86 GeV ones.
Hopefully we will move to the hybrid configuration in the afternoon.
T9 Incoming Main: DRD6 HGCCAL (Yong Liu)
- Status of preparations
- Shipment done: a new chiller, crystal bars
- ISIEC form submitted in June 17
- Plan: safety visit in June 25 at 2PM (confirmed by James Devine)
- Pending: HGCCAL prototype to be transported from B.887
- EDH Internal Transport requested and approved in June 17
- Beam test plan
- Beamline configuration
- To minimise upstream materials by dismantling all Beam Instrumentation components
- Muons: 5/10 GeV
- Electrons: 1.0 - 5.0 GeV and 0.1 - 1.0 GeV
- Will use our beam hodoscope (1cm^3 trigger cubes) for beam alignment
- Will need an XY motorised table (e.g. DESY table)
- Beamline configuration
T10 Outgoing Main: ALICE_ITS3 (P. Martinengo)
Excellent week, with excellent beam
We agreed with SHIP to stay till Friday morning
Thanks a lot to Abou & C. for the flexibility
T10 Main: SHIP TD (Gerardo Vasquez)
Happy with beam settings specially 1cm beam spot with pions 10GeV (Thanks to Maarten)
- First set beam counters already tested with all beam parameters.
- Moving to Long Scintillating bars, currently changing setup. DESY table will be lowered. We will use Cerenkov counters.
T10 Incoming Main: ALICE_TIMING (M. Colocci, S. Strazzi, G. Gioachin)
- Installation next Wed morning. ISIEC form submitted. XCSA table asked. All on track.
North Area Beam Status (D. Banerjee)
On call phone number: 67500
H2/H4: Smooth operation.
H6: Setup for higher rate went well yesterday. Issue with user-provided scalers being followed up today.
H8: Good operation.
M2/P42/K12: Good operation.
TELMAX Outgoing Main: PAX (N. Paul)
Preliminary results from our completed beamtime:
We have obtained data for antiprotonic Zr that allows us to quantify the evolution of spectral lineshape resolutions and centroids as a function of MMBE (Multiple Minibunch Extraction) intensity
We see that higher beam intensity leads to line broadening and shifts in our TES detector.
This can be followed with dynamic gain shift induced by the beam, shown below for the 60 keV Am line. We now try to quantify and correct this gain shift, and define optimal operating conditions that we need from the MMBE for optimized physics measurements. 
Outlook and Next steps :
Data taking complete for antiprotonic Zr. The test during the last 3 days with a high intensity source allowed to follow beam-induced gain drift, as shown above. The AD operators informed us yesterday that the timing problem with the 20s long MMBE spill has now been fixed so that it doesn’t perturb the other users. We will use this long cycle for future beamtimes because this doubles our data taking rate.
We had been preparing production of a 169Yb source at ISOLDE to be used at TELMAX for another run in July to allow us to better follow these gain drift effects. For scheduling reasons, this 169Yb run has been cancelled. The possibility of another 2 week run in July to measure Au and Si targets is being studied and will be decided by the end of the week. We will make another beam request if needed for this July run.
North Area Users Tour de Table
H2 Main: NA61_SHINE (B. Maksiak)
- Data taking started on Friday/Saturday night
- CEDAR was fixed - very good and stable operation since then
- 75M events collected so far
- Whenever beam comes to NA, it is very stable with extremely consistent spill structure
- Since Monday we prepare for run with Oxygen
H4 Main: NA64e (L. Molina Bueno)
We completed the run using 100 GeV electron on Wednesday at 8 am. The beam was very unstable last week. Yesterday, we started changing to e^+ at 70 GeV. The Electromagic calorimeter was substituted by the POKER claorimeter (see next contribution)
H4 Parallel: POKER (A. Celentano)
Installation of the PKR-CAL calorimeter in NA64 setup completed on Wednsday, June 18th.
Thanks to transport team and to Sylvain for help.
Laser safety inspection and “general” safety inspection passed. Got clearance to run the experiment.
Detector DAQ integration in main NA64 DAQ completed.
Checkout of PKR-CAL with laser monitoring system completed - all channels but one working. Will be investigated later.
Commissioning plan for next days:
- Calibration with 70 GeV positrons of all cells
- Linearity scan for central cell at few energy points
After, we plan to perform a pilot missing-energy run with 70 GeV e+. For this, NA64 LYSO-based SRD detector has to be re-calibrated at 70 GeV/c, to be included in trigger system.
A picture of the PKR-CAL detector installed on the DESY platform is reported below.
H6 Outgoing Main: ATLAS_HGTD (Please insert your name)
H6 Main: EP_PIXEL (Younes Otarid)
- High-rate beam very quickly commissioned by Laurie on Wednesday afternoon. Reaching about 6.2E6 / spill in H6B. Thank you!
- Telescope operational, commissioning of new H2M device under test ongoing.
- Plan for (temporary) sample change this afternoon.
- We will keep the setup operational after Sunday and would like to take further parasitic data after the ion run finishes, possibly early in week 28?
H6 Outgoing Parallel: PICSEL (Serhiy Senyukov)
In general it was very efficient beam test despite limited beam availability.
Data taking started on Thursday afternoon and finished on Sunday night.
Nicely focused beam gave us in average 25-30 Hz on 0.5x0.5 mm^2 chip.
Tested 8 chips with total 2.7 Mevents.
Thank you everyone for the support.
H8 Outgoing Main: UA9 (Francesca Galluccio)
Data taking was pretty smooth.
We finished on Tuesday morning and passed the area to STI.
The high priority part of the program was accomplished.
Many thanks to the technical team and to the beam physicists, in particular to M. Van Dijk who was always promptly responding to our requests, also quite outside of working hours.
H8 Main: STI (L.S. Esposito)
- Installation completed on Wednesday: as it is the first time that we install this telescope in PPE128 it took some time configure and test the different components and cable connections.
- The Timepix detectors are synchronized and today we’ll proceed to find stable running conditions.
- In parallel we are completed the settings of the other system needed to test DUT, in particular the goniometer and the crystal pre-alignment system.
- ISIEC visit passed on Tuesday at 16:00.
K12-P42 Main: NA62 (Lubos Bician)
- Whenever we get the beam, we happily take it.
- Unfortunately, we had no proton beam during planned parallel ion commissioning last Friday, as well as yesterday morning and early afternoon during LHC MD preparation.
- Our optimal running conditions are “XION.101.266” to count 1.4e9 (but not more than ~1.5e9), corresponds to ‘about 19 on T10’ (less precise measurement).
M2 Main: MUONE (Aldo Arena)
Last weekend we got high intensity beam. We managed to finish almost all the commissioning work we wanted to do.
With the beam permitting, we had the possibility to get some physics runs that made possible to test the DAQ stability, flow and trigger.
With the very limited data in hand, we also tested the quality of the data and extrapolated some physics very very preliminary results (thanks to Eugenia Spedicato, Riccardo Pilato & the analysis team for the plots).
Basically, we just need enough beam time to fulfill the statistics needed for the physics measurement.
All the beam stops are making difficult/challenging to have enough data until the end of the run.
H6 Outgoing Parasitic: CMS MTD ETL (Giacomo Zecchinelli)
- The main goal of the TB was to compare timing performances between two different FE prototypes using the same sensor. That required several quik accesses to switch the modules back and forth
- Beam availability (especially during office hours :) ) has been a bit challenging, but thanks to the high intensity, we recorded >48M events, which is a record for us
- Thanks to the main users to keep intervention in sync with the beam downtime!
- We have a lot of data to analyze and we will be back in 3 weeks.
H8 Outgoing Parasitic: CMS FSC (Suat Özkorucuklu)
We had completed test activities on FSC counter with success.
All the counters are removed and placed to buffer zone and a waitng to delivery to P5.
Thanks to SPS coordination for the apportunity.
H8 Parasitic: STRAW_TRACKER_RD (Please insert your name)
M2 Parasitic: AMBER (Nikolay Anfimov)
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Minutes by the respective speakers, edited by M. Jäkel and M. Malkin
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