Minutes of the ISOLDE Physics Group Meeting, March 7th 2018
There were no comments to the minutes of the last ISOLDE PGM.
- Before the meeting, a number of new ISOLDE group members were introduced: Jared Croese, a new doctoral student working on VITO, Joonas Konki, a new Fellow working on Miniball and Simon Sels, a new Fellow working on the MIRACLS project.
Technical news
- HRS/GPS/REX/HIE-ISOLDE
- Operations have had a difficult week due to software problems on the beam controls and diagnostics. The problems have been caused by a series of updates to the new FESA3 framework. The wire grids are especially affected.
- The GPS magnet is currently not available. The new power supply has not yet been implemented in the control system and, with the large workload, one more week is necessary to get it running.
- It seems that in the planning of software interventions the cold check-out time of the ISOLDE facility has not been considered, leading to the bad timing of upgrades.
- The newly installed HRS HV modulator works very well.
- The HRS.QP30 power supply is tripping. One possible source of the problem is the connection cables. They are being investigated.
- There have been some trips of the HRS line heating.
- The vacuum systems are running. The exhaust balloons will need to be emptied at a certain point in the future.
- A recurring water leak is causing trouble next to the old ISOLDE entrance. Each time water infiltrates, the fire department needs to intervene.
- With the exception of the mentioned beam-instrumentation problems, REX is OK.
- The water cooling circuit of REX seems to be dirty. The water colour is very dark. This is a possible source of the often interlock trips experienced last year.
- MEDICIS DSO tests took place yesterday.
- A visual inspection of the BTY line also took place yesterday. Rust was found on some of the elements, which will be followed-up on.
- RILIS
- The GPS beam alignment was performed last week.
- The GPS magnet problems are putting RILIS on hold for the scheduled laser scheme tests.
- LIST tests are being performed off-line.
- Targets
- Tests of the class A area will be performed this week.
- Twelve targets will be returned before Easter to the class A area from the Intersecting Storage Rings.
Physics and schedule
- A meeting with the members of the ISOLDE TISD group will be scheduled soon, in order for representatives of scheduled experiments to discuss with them upcoming beam times.
- The “TBC” slot in the June schedule might be dedicated to tests (not yet confirmed) of the new ISOLDE tape station or to an IDS fast-timing run.
Safety
- A fire alarm is being sometimes triggered for the target area. It will be investigated, in order to determine exact cause and location.
- A possible ISOLDE evacuation exercise will take place at an unspecified date in the future.
- Representatives of setups storing equipment in b. 275 are requested to meet next Wednesday at 09:30 in the building, for the yearly clean-up.
- Users are reminded to follow all procedures for calibration sources. In the future it might become mandatory to wear a ring dosimeter when handling radioactive sources. This must be clarified, as the procedures to follow for obtaining the ring will complicate performing calibrations during ISOLDE beam times.
Visits
- A large number of visits are coming for April (8 in total). Volunteers are kindly asked to contact Hanne Heylen.
AOB
- The meetings of the Advisory Committee of CERN Users (ACCU) are very informative and a place to discuss some of the organizational issues of CERN. Users are encouraged to use their country representatives and raise issues through this channel. Issues such as the new mandatory wearing of identification cards at all times are being discussed in this forum.
- The most recent meeting of ACCU took place yesterday and addressed the issue of the EU Regulation GDPR coming into effect on May 25th. This new regulation will put constraints on the handling of private data in official communication, including CERN. CERN has created an Office handling this matter (ODPP https://odpp.web.cern.ch/) and is preparing a new Operation Circular summarizing the GDRP for the practical purposes of the CERN activity.
- ISOLDE group members are kindly requested to give feed-back on the new latex version of the Newsletter, in order to optimize next year’s edition.
Seminar
- The Meeting was followed by the seminar of Joao Martins Correia from the University of Lisbon with the title “Friendly (Hyperfine) Interactions between matter and radioactive nuclei. Can we p-type dope the transparent semiconductor gallium oxide?”.
The next PG meeting will take place on Wednesday, March 14th, at 14:00 in the ISOLDE visitors’ room (26-1-022). It will be followed by the seminar of Frank Wienholtz from CERN with the title “Multi-Reflection Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry.”
Minutes taken by VM
Associated Files