Present: J. Billowes, K. Blaum, Y. Blumenfeld, P. Butler, R. Catherall, J. Cederkall, A. Di Pietro, S. Franchoo, H. Fynbo (replacing K. Riisager), M.J. Garcia-Borge (Chairperson), S. Harissopulos, M. Henry, A. Jokinen, Y. Kadi, M. Kowalska, N. Marginean, S. Siem, P. Van Duppen

Excused: L. Fraile, K. Riisager 

Invited: R. Losito

The meeting starts at 09:00 h

1. Introductory remarks by the chairperson

The chairperson opens the meeting and announces that L. Fraile is excused from the meeting while K. Riisager will be replaced by H. Fynbo.

S. Harissopulos and M. Henry are welcomed to the meeting as the representatives of Greece and Ireland, the two new member countries of the ISOLDE Collaboration. Members of the ISCC are asked to briefly introduce themselves.

2. Approval of the minutes of the 58th meeting.

The minutes of the 58th ISCC meeting are approved after the addition of a link to the CERN code of conduct webpage. However, the chairperson requests that CERN abbreviations are not used in the minutes of future meetings.

3. Technical developments and BE & EN Department news (R. Catherall) (see overheads)

R. Catherall begins by giving a complete overview of 2010 operations and summarises the problems encountered. Users who have experimental set-ups at ISOLDE are asked to ensure they have good vacuum pumping so as to avoid disruption of the ISOLDE vacuum.

A brief overview of REX-ISOLDE operations during 2010 is given; during one period 16 different beams were successfully supplied in 15 days. The status of the upgrade and development of REX is presented which includes the consolidation of REXTRAP and the REX vacuum systems as well as the installation of the twin-EBIS built at the Manne Siegbahn Laboratory. The consequences of long-lived beams at REX-ISOLDE are briefly explained; work practices at both REX and MINIBALL will have to be adapted.

R. Catherall then goes on to summarise the beams provided by RILIS in 2010, including the world record Beryllium beam, and the work carried out on the new RILIS lasers.

The committee is told that the Safety File for the ISOLDE primary facility, which is being used as a pilot, is under development and the draft version has been presented to the BFSP (Beam Facilities Safety Panel). This safety file is complementary to the safety file for experiments that has been requested by the PH DSO (Departmental Safety Officer).

The status of target and ion source development is then summarized including the fact that n-rich Au beams ^{201, 203,205}Au have been delivered and that a high density UCx target is under investigation. The JRA2 of ENSAR (European Nuclear Science and Application Research) called ActiLab for the development of UCx targets has now started under FP7.

R. Catherall then moves on to the work planned for the 2010/2011 shutdown period which includes the installation of Front End 7 and the REX vacuum controls upgrade. He shows the justification for replacing Front End 4 with the new Front End 7 and shows that some advanced work has already been carried out using experience gathered when installing Front End 6. The complex safety procedure regarding work dose planning and radiation work permits is summarised, which has to be completed before the main installation work can go ahead.  A brief outline of the upgrade of the REX vacuum controls is given and the schedule for the work is presented. The new system should be commissioned in April 2011.

The presentation concludes with news from the EN department which includes the status of the target upgrade project. The conceptual design for the new robots is shown and the committee is told of the initial tests carried out at Staubli. The waste disposal pathway is summarized including the status of the hot cell, the work on UC₂ being carried out in collaboration with the University of Bristol and the storage of used targets in sealed drums in the ISR3.

4. Scheduling and PH Department news (M. Kowalska / Y. Blumenfeld) (see overheads)

M. Kowalska summarises the statistics of the proposals, addendas and letters of intent presented or to be presented at this years INTC meetings.

The ISOLDE schedule for 2010 is then presented in which there was 29 weeks of physics. In 2010 the number of RIB shifts requested was 667, using 93 different beams, of which 480 shifts, using 75 different beams, were actually scheduled. A total of 432 REX-ISOLDE shifts were requested of which 160 were scheduled.

M. Kowalska then details the main problems encountered at ISOLDE by experiments during 2010. She then goes on to inform the committee that at the end of this years running period and including an estimate of the shifts to be approved at the November 2010 INTC meeting, there would be about 700 shifts remaining to be scheduled. A discussion takes place about how the backlog of ISOLDE RIB shifts should be managed while still allowing efficient scheduling. The committee suggest that M. Kowalska make a study of how long experiments have to wait between acceptance and scheduling.

A draft accelerator schedule for 2011 is then presented to the committee. ISOLDE should start receiving protons on April 25th and physics should start on May 2nd. Delivery of protons is scheduled to stop on November 20th 2011 giving a total of 29 weeks of physics. The schedule also includes several 24h injector stops and a number of periods of machine developement.

M. Kowalska explains to the committee that, because the LHC is running better than expected and the CERN/LHC competitor Fermilab might run after 2011, it is probable that the long CERN-wide shutdown will be postponed from 2012 to 2013. A final decision will be made in late spring/early summer 2011. The effects on the planning/running of ISOLDE due to this long shutdown will be as follows:

• Priority for scheduling in 2011 will be given, as usual, to experiments that have been waiting for beam the longest but in particular to projects linked to a PhD thesis in case the shutdown occurs in 2012.
• The INTC will accept regular proposals at its meeting in February 2011 but what happens in June and November is still to be discussed.
• Some weeks of offline physics might be possible during the year long shutdown and some ideas have already been collected informally from ISOLDE users. There could be requests from experiments which use long-lived species either extracted from the ISOLDE irradiated targets or from samples irradiated elsewhere. Other requests could come for stable beams mainly to be used for set-up characterisation. Once the dates of the long shutdown have been decided R. Catherall will prepare a manpower/resource plan for 4 months of offline running and M. Kowalska and himself will re-contact ISOLDE users for precise off-line beam requests.

A discussion follows about the procedure that should be used for the requests for offline experiments during the long shutdown; whether the requests should be handled internally at ISOLDE or through the INTC as offline experiments would still use the CERN infrastructure. The commitee is reminded that, during the long shutdown, CERN manpower will not be available to solve problems as quickly as during normal running periods.

M. Kowalska then summarises the status of the following ISOLDE experiments:

• ECR: Many ECR parts have been shipped to GANIL
• MISTRAL: The clean-up is on-going and the 22 ton magnet has been moved to long-term storage.
• BETA-NMR: The Beta-NMR system is now in place and the Beta-scintillator tests are on-going.
• CRIS: Installation is complete and the first on-line run is planned for November 2010.
• WITCH: Installation of additional shielding for REX mass separator is on-going and should be tested with the REX beam soon.
• HV Platform: The HV Platform has been dismantled and removed. The HRS collection point will be mounted soon.
• GLM: Some improvement has been made to the vacuum and beam focusing. The new set-up is available and will be installed soon.

The committee is informed that the new ISOLDE website has been on-line since September 2010. Information is still being added to the site and the new ”News” page is now available. Y. Blumenfeld summarises recent discussions he has had with CERN management. The CERN wide long shutdown which will take place in 2012 or 2013 will last for 15 to 18 months. There is a possibility that ISOLDE could run off-line for 3 to 4 months after the stop if this is requested at the appropriate time. Y. Blumenfeld also tells the committee that R. Catherall has been asked to prepare a proposal for moving the Class C laboratory out of building 275 and closer to the ISOLDE Hall due to safety issues. This would provide more office space in building 275. The DAQ-Room will also be moved to a location outside the hall.

The staff changes at ISOLDE are then summarised:

• The new ISOLDE Coordinator, M. Kowalska, started in October.
• Thomas Cocolios started as a fellow in July.
• A new PhD student, Kara Lynch, started work at ISOLDE in September.
• Jenny Weterings will continue as ISOLDE secretary under a Norwegian contract starting April 1st 2011 (half funded by the CERN PH Department and half by the collaboration). S. Siem is thanked for her help in organising this contract.

5. Budget 2010 and projection for 2011 (Y. Blumenfeld)

Y. Blumenfeld informs the committee that the following countries have not yet paid their ISOLDE collaboration contributions for 2010: Finland, France, Greece and Norway. The funding agency in Norway, which has also not yet paid its contribution for 2009, has been contacted and they are optimistic about finding the money to pay.

Y. Blumenfeld goes on to explain that, in order to facilitate keeping an overview of HIE ISOLDE spending, a separate collaboration team account T131910 has been created into which the collaboration’s yearly contribution of 300kCHF starting from 2009 and the special contribution from Germany will be transferred directly.

6. ENSAR@ISOLDE (Y. Blumenfeld)

Y. Blumenfeld informs the ISCC that the ENSAR Selection committee for transnational access has been put into place and consists of himself, M. Garcia Borge, P. Butler, K. Johnston, M. Kowlaska and K. Riisager. The first call for ENSAR support went out to experiment spokespersons at the beginning of August and the committee made its first decisions on the distribution of support on 31^st August. Y. Blumenfeld told the ISCC that he was proud to announce that the first payments were made on 1^st September and as of 22^nd October 33 physicists from 10 different experiments have been supported for a total of

25 000 Euros.

The committee is told that the contract of J. Thiboud has now been extended until August 2013 and he is paid 50% using ENSAR funding which means that he will be available to give help to all ISOLDE experiments from September 2011. More ENSAR funds would be used to hire a post-doc for 2 years; the profile of this position will be defined in the next two months.

8. M.O.U issues – new members and collaboration agreements (Y. Blumenfeld)

Y. Blumenfeld welcomes Greece and Ireland to the ISOLDE Collaboration. M. Henry, the representative from Ireland announces that he would like to organise a workshop in Ireland in order to promote ISOLDE to experimental groups at other Irish institutes.

The committee is told that Korea is close to signing the ISOLDE MoU and discussions have been held with K. Baruth-Ram about the possibility of South Africa becoming a member of the ISOLDE collaboration. However there has been no change regarding the membership of Portugal. Discussions with Israel are progressing slowly.

Y. Blumenfeld goes on to tell the committee that MoUs designed to promote collaboration between institutes has now been signed with LNL, Calcutta, Korea and GANIL.

The ISCC agrees that a representative from ISOLDE, probably K. Johnston, will be involved in EFINION (European Forum for Innovative application of Nuclear ION beams and tools).

9. Prolongation of ISOLDE Group Leader Contract (M. Garcia-Borge)

M. Garcia-Borge announces that Y. Blumenfeld’s contract as ISOLDE Physics Group Leader will be extended for a period of 1 year as soon as CNRS approves a 1 year extension of his leave of absence.

It is agreed that the procedure to select the next group leader will start at the ISCC meeting in February 2011 and a search committee is setup consisting of the ISCC chairperson M. Garcia-Borge, the INTC chairperson P. Butler, the ISOLDE group leader Y. Blumenfeld, K. Blaum and S. Siem. The search committee should send its suggestions for the next group leader to Y. Blumenfeld by the end of December and a phone meeting will be held in January 2011.

10. HIE-ISOLDE (Y. Kadi) (see overheads)

Y. Kadi begins by informing the committee that the new HIE-ISOLDE website is now on-line http://hie-isolde.web.cern.ch . He then proceeds to summarise the status of the HIE-ISOLDE project. The project has been included in the new CERN MidTermPlan which was approved by CERN council in September 2010. The new plan means a shift in planning of the HIE-ISOLDE project and the budget and resources have been revised.

The committee is told that the CATHI agreement is signed and it officially began on November 1^st 2010. This means the first of the CATHI fellows will start work in January 2011. A list of the CATHI positions already open is shown for each of which a CERN supervisor has already been assigned. The ISCC members are asked to advertise these positions in their countries institutes.

Y. Kadi explains that grant proposals have been submitted in Spain for a total of nearly 1.35 M € (after the meeting it has been learnt that the grant proposal for 350K€ for beam diagnostics has been successful while the one for resourcing the low beta SC cavity has not) and one to a Scandinavian consortium. However about half of the external funding, about 9MCHF, still has to be found. He then tells the committee that new cavity RF tests are taking place at CERN but, unfortunately, the results are similar to those seen at TRIUMF. The cavity was well behaved and gave a stable frequency but the quality factor of the accelerating field was not achieved. A slightly modified 2^nd prototype cavity is in fabrication.

The committee is informed that the new layout of HIE-ISOLDE has been finalized and that when RP simulation calculations are completed the layout will be fixed.

Y. Kadi then summarises the status of the Material and Personnel budgets. He shows how the use of the remaining material budget of 35.3MCHF will be spread over the period 2010 to 2016. The following people working on the HIE-ISOLDE project are at present being paid from the collaborations HIE-ISOLDE team account T131910:

• Mathew Fraser, PhD, Beam Dynamics
• Francesca Zocca, Spanish Fellow, Beam Instrumentation (paid additional subsistence only; salary paid by Spain)
• Mathieu Therasse, Fellow, SC cavity RF (50%)
• Yuriy Romanets, UPAS from ITN Lisbon, Radiation protection
• Yann Leclercq, Fellow, Cryomodule design

The committee agrees that the procedure for paying PhD students from the collaboration budget should be clarified.

The revised HIE-ISOLDE schedule is presented and Y. Kadi explains that the most significant change is that the start of civil engineering has been shifted 6 months to the summer of 2011.

11. Report on HIE-ISOLDE Physics Coordination Group Meeting (Y. Blumenfeld)(see overheads)

Y. Blumenfeld summarises the discussions held at the recent meeting of the HIE-ISOLDE Physics Coordination Group. Important user requirements were established and follow up for certain issues identified including a TSR storage ring workshop in Heidelberg organized by K. Blaum.

The next meeting of the HIE-ISOLDE Physics Coordination Group will be held in February 2011 and any input from ISCC spokespersons and ISOLDE Users is welcome.

12. Report on TSR storage ring workshop (K. Blaum)

K. Blaum gives a short summary of the TSR storage ring workshop which was held in Heidelberg. About 40 people attended the workshop and very good presentations were given. Four excellent cases were shown for such a TSR storage ring project at HIE-ISOLDE. K. Blaum explains that for further study the number of ions available after REX-ISOLDE needs to be known.

K. Blaum will give a short presentation about the possibilities of such a project at the up-coming ISOLDE Workshop and Users meeting. The committee agrees that, while funding for this project still has to be looked into, space requirements would have to be known soon and the CERN support groups should be involved right from the beginning of the project.

13. INTC Matters (P. Butler)

P. Butler tells the ISCC that all the HIE ISOLDE LOIs submitted to the special INTC meeting held in June were seen positively and that such LOIs can still be submitted to future INTC meetings.

The committee is informed that the INTC will consider 11 proposals and 5 LOIs at the November meeting. It will be the last INTC meeting for committee members U. Wahl and H. Leeb who will be replaced at the next meeting by J. Vaagen and Z. Zalaman. N. Alahari will replace P. Roussel-Chomaz starting at this meeting.

The dates of next year’s INTC meetings have been fixed as 2/3 February, 6/7 July and 3/4 November.

P. Butler explains that a technical committee will now meet prior to the INTC meetings to review the technical implications for ISOLDE of each proposal.

14. A.O.B

• The format of the ISCC meetings is discussed. It is decided to keep the format the morning before the INTC starting at 8:30am. Due to the length of the meeting a sandwich lunch paid by the collaboration will be served at the next meeting.

The meeting ends at 13:15.