73rd ISCC meeting

30th June 2015
Minutes

Present: A. Algora, B. Blank, Y. Blumenfeld, R. Catherall, J. Cederkall, M.J. Garcia-Borge, Janne Pakarinen (Replacing P. Greenlees), D. Jenkins (via Skype), Y. Kadi, M. Kowalska, N. Marginean, K. Riisager, N. Severijns, S. Siem, L. Schweikhard

Excused: K. Blaum, M. Henry, D. Santonocito 

Absent: U. Datta Pramanik, S. Harissopulos, R. Losito

Invited: B. Bhuiyan, T. Giles (P.T.), E. Siesling (P.T.), T. Stora, J.A. Rodriguez (P.T.), W. Venturini (P.T.)

The meeting starts at 09:00 h

1. Introductory remarks by the chairperson

The chairperson opens the meeting and welcomes the committee as well as B. Bhuiyan, the invited speaker representing the nuclear physics community in Bangladesh. The above mentioned members of the committee are excused.

2. Approval of the minutes of the 72nd meeting.

The minutes of the 72nd ISCC meeting are accepted without any alterations.

3. HIE-ISOLDE installations and commissioning plans (W. Venturini) (see presentation)

W. Venturini presents the HIE-ISOLDE installation and commissioning planning and informs the committee that everything is on track. The assembly and installation of Cryomodule 1 (CM1) is complete with a final qualification being a 13 hour heat run which didn’t produce any heat spots. The commissioning of CM1 is now underway so the planning and results so far are presented. The RF systems are working well and no cold leaks were found after cool-down but cold alignment of about 1mm will be required. The concerns presently being addressed are then presented.

The committee is informed that the cryogenics on-call support system will not be put in place until the machine is delivered, i.e. it will not be available during commissioning (Update: Starting date now given as 1st September). The operations team that will take over responsibility for the running of the machine and supply the on-call support will be trained during commissioning. If summer storms cause power failures during commissioning then the cooling and vacuum systems will fail. This will not produce any irreversible effects but it would cause a delay of about one week.

4. Commissioning of REX (J.A. Rodriguez) (see presentation)

J.A. Rodriguez summarizes the status of hardware commissioning at REX; there is a few weeks delay in the commissioning of several RF systems and it will take a few weeks to commission the 9 gap amplifier due to arrive in week 31 (Update: delayed to beginning of September) but hardware commissioning  of all other systems in the linac is completed.

The committee is told that commissioning with beam started at REX in week 25 and the beam has so far successfully been accelerated through the RFQ and into the first diagnostics box.

5. Status of the HIE-ISOLDE Project: Phase II and 3rd beam line (Y. Kadi) (see presentation)

Y. Kadi informs the committee that a very successful visit of HIE-ISOLDE by the CERN Director General took place on 27th May 2015. The whole project was highly commended by the CERN-DG, ATS Management, HIE-IAP and HIE-SC and the go ahead for the 3rd beamline was given. However, Phase 3 of the project was not approved by CERN due to the lack of funding for this phase.

The new budget is presented to the committee with the cost to completion reduced from 43.2 MCHF to 40.5 MCHF. This new figure incorporates the removal of Phase 3 as well as the extra cost of the 3rd beamline and the spare parts for Phase 2. As the short beam diagnostic boxes and steering modules were procured for all three phases of the project at the same time, a cost of 115 kCHF has already been incurred for Phase 3. The extra hardware will now be used as spares and CERN will cover the cost. THE CERN MTP 2016-2020 now includes machine spare parts, consolidation of the cryogenic system and the 3rd beam line as well as Phase 2 manpower for cryomodule assembly, increase of component cost and spares.

As the ISOLDE Collaboration will be providing 400 kCHF per year up until 2025 (if 540 kCHF for spares parts for Phase 2 is included in the project cost), the project will be short of cash between 2015 and 2025 peaking at a maximum of 2.9 MCHF in 2016. An agreement with CERN finance will allow this negative balance.

The status of CM2 is mentioned; defects have been discovered with the cavities already delivered and a solution to the problem is being sought. After assembly, CM2 is due to be tested at SM18 and then installed at the beginning of 2016.

Y. Kadi then presents the status and planning of Phase 2. About half the components have already been procured and there should be no reason why cryomodules 3 and 4 should cost any more than the two cryomodules in Phase 1. Installation of Phase 2 is planned for the winter shutdown of 2016/2017 with physics due to start in June 2017.

Y. Kadi continues by presenting the options for the 3rd beamline which could be installed by April 2017 along with CM3 and CM4. The 1st proposal involves placing HELIOS on XT02 which is the cost optimised solution (900 KCHF). The beam parameters would remain unchanged and the layout would still be TSR compatible. This option would also allow installation of TRImuP on XT01 and provide an open position for MINIBALL. The 2nd proposal would install HELIOS on a U-bend at XT03 which would again leave the beam parameters unchanged and be compatible with TSR but access to the rear of the hall would be compromised. This option would cost close to 2 MCHF. CERN will fund the 3rd beamline and favours the first proposal. After a discussion the committee approves the first option to build the 3rd beamline with the Proposed installation of HELIOS on XT02. The possibility to install HELIOS on XT03 should still be investigated.

D. Jenkins informs the committee that, if funding is approved, the HELIOS magnet would be delivered directly to CERN and could be stored somewhere other than the ISOLDE hall as long as the location allowed it’s testing. The committee expresses its concerns that when the style="margin-left: 14.15pt;">HELIOS magnet is actually installed in the hall its running will require a certain level of manpower especially as its frequent powering up for experiments would differ from its present constant use for hospital MRI. The committee recommends that information about the stray field of the magnet should be provided so that the matter of how it will affect planned setups can be discussed at the HIE-ISOLDE Physics coordination meeting.

The committee expresses its concern that Phase 3 has been removed from the CERN HIE- ISOLDE project and stresses that the upgrade of REX is essential as it is 20 years old. The collaboration will continue to search for external funds necessary for the low-beta R&D.
 

6. Technical news and operation of the Facility (R. Catherall) (see presentation)

R. Catherall informs the committee of the formation of the new Ion Source and Beam Manipulation Development Team which means a regular meeting of the RILIS and Target teams will take place which should provide a highly effective means of improving ISOLDE performance. The new team will tackle subjects such as:

  • HRS upgrade

  • ToFLIS

  • FEBIAD optimization

  • VADLIS

  • LIST

  • ISCOOL upgrades

  • Fast beam gating

  • RILIS selectivity

  • Ion Beam multiplexing

  • Optical pumping

Recent REX low energy activities are then briefly summarized. The committee is then told that RILIS is now operating from its new remote control room in building 508 and that recent developments include the possibility of clean tellurium beams at ISOLDE and optical pumping with ISCOOL. VADLIS has successfully been used to produce the first on-line RILIS ion beams from liquid targets (Cd from Sn and Hg from Pb) and an up to two fold efficiency improvement has been observed for Hg and Cd compared to VADIS alone.

Recent developments and issues related to the separators are then summarized including the status of the new tape station, beam diagnostics and HRS cycling. The moving of the target water cooling panel for safety reasons unfortunately produced a water leak into the RILIS room and HRS separator. Issues relating to this incident are being dealt with.

The committee is informed that the Class A laboratories are now operational and, while the airlock, target transport and “Bind Access” mode are working well, a working group is assessing the implications and solutions for ensuring a dynamic confinement in the case of a fire. In the target area, the robot incident at the HRS  was found to have been caused by a software problem which has been fixed.

R. Catherall reports that at the request of the IEFC (Injection and Experimental Facilities Committee) a presentation was made at their meeting on 20th March regarding the issues involved with taking 2GeV beam at ISOLDE. As a result, the IEFC recommended that a working group be set up to consider the issues involved but no news about this matter has yet been received from the committee. At the IEFC meeting on 26th June, the consolidation requirements for ISOLDE magnets were presented by A. Newborough TE-MSC. The ISCC states that the 2GeV upgrade is very important for ISOLDE and insists that this matter pushes ahead quickly.

The committee is informed that LS2 is presently scheduled to start in December 2018 and will last for 2 years for LHC and approximately 15 months for the injectors.

7. Beam Developments and TISD activities (T. Stora) (see presentation)

T. Stora begins by giving a brief overview of beams available at various ISOL facilities including ISOLDE. He explains that ISOL beam intensity and availability depend on a large number of factors which are from the areas of material science, chemistry, ion sources and targetry. An overview of the beam developments made over the past 8 years is presented as well as the most recent results including the negative ion beams, the liquid lead bismuth target, 8B beams and nanomaterials.

The committee is reminded that beam developments are discussed once a year at the Group for the Upgrade of ISOLDE (GUI), which has a new website http://isolde.web.cern.ch/group-upgrade-isolde-gui , and that the three present catagories of beam development priority will be replaced by the following two catagories:

  • Priority I: approved INTC LoI’s asking for technical development and missed scheduled beams

  • Priority II: R&D

The committee is told that, over the past 10 years, the developments made at ISOLDE have
been such that none of the target and ion source units constructed in 2016 will be identical to
those that were used in 2006. T. Stora then presents the current TISD team:

  • T. Mendonca: Senior Fellow, High power targetry(salt target, LIEBE project) - until July 2016(will soon take 4 months maternity leave)

  • M. Delonca: Applied Fellow, LIEBE project – until February 2016

  • J. Ballof: Doctoral Student, Molecular beams (8B, carbonyl of refractory elements) – December 2017

  • J.P. Ramos: Doctoral Student, Target nanomaterials (EPFL): until October 2015 (+6months)

  • Y. Martinez: COAS (PhD student at KU Leuven) 50% - until 2018

  • W.J. Whang: COAS (RISP) – until July 2015

The fact that there is only one senior fellow and 1 PhD student available to the TISD team is
leading to a reduction in the TISD programme. The committee stresses that it is very
concerned about the diminuation of target and Ion Source development and support at
ISOLDE as these activities are what makes ISOLDE stand out as a world leading facility. It
expresses its support for the creation of a CERN staff position as soon as possible to
strengthen the TISD team as is required.

8. MEDICIS project status and Planning (T. Stora) (see presentation)

T. Stora explains that CERN wishes to streamline it’s medical applications and make them

more visible so S. Myers will head the new medical applications office. CERN-MEDICIS, which

will exploit the proton beam that would otherwise end up in the ISOLDE beam dump to

activate other targets, is now an approved project in the EN Department and will come under

the umbrella of the new medical applications office.

The status of the ongoing work at MEDICIS is briefly summarised including the successful

commissioning with beam of the irradiation station and the installation of robots and shielded

doors. The Class-A laboratory is back in operation although a problem with the air pressure

when the fire alarm goes off still has to be solved. The planning of activities until February

2016 is presented and the committee is told that it is hoped to have all the facilities in place

to be able to start the dismantling of ISOLDE targets some time next year. The suggestion

from T. Stora that the ISCC visits the MEDICIS laboratory during one of it’s future

meetings is met with enthusiasm.

A list of the external partners involved in the MEDICIS project is presented and the

committee is told that the MoU signing procedure has been relaunched; the delay being due

to the project being put on hold for six months while waiting for budget news.

T. Stora then introduces MEDICIS-PROMED, MEDICIS-produced radioisotope beams for

medicine, which is an Innovative Training Network (ITN) under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie

Actions within the EU-funded H2020 programme. The ITN is recruiting 15 Early

Stage Researchers (ESRs). Eleven positions are funded by the EU, three of which will

be recruited by CERN, with a further eight at the premises of MEDICIS-PROMED partners

in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the United Kingdom, and four funded by the

Swiss Confederation for recruitment by Swiss partners. Enthusiastic and talented students

or young professionals thinking of doing a doctorate are encouraged to apply for these posts

which will offer an employment contract with a maximum duration of 3 years in order to

obtain a PhD degree with one of the European universities which are involved in MEDICIS-

PROMED. More details about these positions and how to apply can be found via

http://medicis-promed.web.cern.ch/open-positions or http://jobs.web.cern.ch/job/11270 .

A brief discussion takes place about the distribution of beam time at the MEDICIS facility.

T. Stora informs the committee that a MEDICIS selection board will approve beam-

time requests and then report on its decisions to the INTC.

9. RFQ Cooler and New Tape Station development (T. Giles) (see presentation)

T. Giles informs the committee that the RFQ cooler/buncher was rebuilt at the end of the long shutdown, during which a number of practical problems had been solved, and, at first, it worked extremely well with good transmission in continuous mode dropping off for very heavy and very light masses. However, the water leak at the cooling panel produced problems for the cooler including poor/unstable transmission beyond 40kV. These problems have been identified and, now that the A-class laboratory is available again, it is hoped to solve these issues soon.

Measurements made showing the cooling progression through the RFQ cooler for different masses and ion-sources are presented. T. Giles informs the committee that a new Optical Pumping technique developed this year will be presented by C. Babcock at the upcoming GUI meeting.

T. Giles then briefly explains that an automatic beam tuning system has been developed by connecting an optimiser, which uses the Nelder-Mead simplex algorithm, directly to hardware at REX-ISOLDE. The system has been used to successfully take beam through REX and J. Palmer has packaged the application so that it can be used by ISOLDE users.

Finally T. Giles reports on the status of the new Fast Tape Station (FTS). While the present tape station has served well for the past 40 years it is now difficult to maintain so a new FTS is urgently required. After spending a significant amount of time unsuccessfully trying to bring the tape station brought to CERN from Strasbourg up to the level of reliability required for quick determination of yields, it was decided to design a completely new FTS. T. Giles presents the concept of the new FTS and explains that, after a demonstrator was constructed to test certain design features, the final design was fixed. It is planned to build two FTS’s, with the second being used as a test bench to solve any problems encountered with the one installed at ISOLDE. The total cost of the two stations will be 366kCHF and 250kCHF has recently been approved by CERN meaning that the new FTS should be installed at ISOLDE during the 2016/2017 winter shutdown (since the meeting plans have changed and installation with take place during the 2015/2016 shutdown). T. Giles states that he does not foresee any problems with moving the second FTS from one experimental setup at ISOLDE to another.

10. INTC matters (M. Kowalska) ( see presentation)

M. Kowalska informs the committee that the TSR@ISOLDE project received strong support in recent meetings of the CERN SPC (Scientific Policy Committee) and FC (Financial Committee). CERN management is looking into how the project could be financed and M.J.G. Borge and K. Blaum have a meeting scheduled with R. Heuer to discuss this issue.

The committee is told that nine proposals for experiments at ISOLDE will be presented at the upcoming INTC meeting showing there is still strong interest in ISOLDE beamtime which is a testament to the outstanding position of ISOLDE in the RIB community.

M. Kowalska goes on to tell the committee that there is still support from CERN management to provide an extended beamtime at the end of 2015 in order to allow a minimum amount of physics at HIE-ISOLDE and that K. Blaum’s mandate as the INTC chairperson has been extended by a year until the end of 2016.

11. Nuclear Physics in Bangladesh and plans related to ISOLDE (B. Bhuiyan) (see presentation)

Prof. G.M. Bhuiyan begins by thanking the ISOLDE Collaboration and J. Röder for making it possible for him to make a presentation to the ISCC. He goes on to introduce Bangladesh and its capital city, Dhaka before presenting his home institute, Dhaka University which was established in 1921 and now has over 36,000 students.

The nuclear physics facilities and activities in Bangladesh are then summarized before the work and some results of the Condensed Matter Theory Group at Dhaka University are presented. Possible areas of collaboration with experiments at ISOLDE are discussed and the other institutes in Bangladesh that are interested in this collaboration are presented.

The ISCC declares that it would welcome Bangladesh as a member of the ISOLDE Collaboration.

12. Discussion on future Group Leader

The contract of the present ISOLDE Physics Group leader is extended by one extra year until 30th June 2017.

13. Experiments & Schedule & Access to the hall (M. Kowalska) (see presentation)

M. Kowalska begins by summarizing activities at existing set-ups at ISOLDE and then presents the ISOLDE schedule for this year up until mid-October. She explains that, of the 470 low-energy shifts requested, about 390 from 38 IS experiments and 4 LOIs have been scheduled during the 27 weeks of physics. Results from some of the experiments that have already taken beam this year are briefly presented as well as the type of experiments still to come including the HIE-ISOLDE runs planned from mid-October until mid-November.

M. Kowalska then moves on to discuss the matter of access to the ISOLDE facility. All users, both with or without a dosimeter, should consult www.cern.ch/isolde/get-access-isolde-facility for up-to-date information about the procedure to get access to the ISOLDE experimental hall. Temporary dosimeters are no longer allowed at ISOLDE so to obtain a permanent dosimeter and get access to the experimental hall:

  • Follow online course on general safety

  • Follow online RP course on Supervised Areas

  • Follow ISOLDE online RP course

  • Follow online electrical awareness course

  • Present RP form, signed by home institute, at the dosimetry service

  • Follow the RP ISOLDE practical course and the hands on electrical awareness course.

  • Make EDH access request

The two hour RP ISOLDE practical course was introduced in July 2014 and takes place

on Tuesdays at 15:00. The new two hour ISOLDE electrical awareness practical course that

was introduced in April 2015 and is held on Tuesdays at 13:00, should be followed by

December this year. The committee is informed that registration for the practical courses

has to be done via EDH a minimum of one week in advance; new users should make a pre-

registration via email but, once registered, must also complete registration via EDH.

The committee is informed that access to the HIE-ISOLDE worksite is still restricted to

local physicists when moving equipment. From May 2015 access to ISOLDE for all users is

from the Jura side and through the new tourniquet activated via dosimeter. The ISOLDE hall

door opens using the CERN access card but this system will soon be removed.

M. Kowalska tells the committee that, as ISOLDE is now a controlled area, CERN RP are

monitoring visits more closely. Only professional (university students and teachers, school

teachers and VIPs) visits are allowed and non-professional visits (high-school students aged

over 16, friends and family) will be considered on a case-by-case basis. No visits are allowed

when beamlines are open or high-intensity collections are being made. All visits must be

announced to the Physics Coordinator, R. Catherall and K. Lynch so that they can be discussed

for approval in the Tuesday ISOLDE technical meeting. The visits will then be included in the

weekly schedule.

14. Building 508 and 275 (M. Kowalska) (see presentation)

M. Kowalska informs the committee that the cleanup of building 275 is still ongoing and that

the building is now being shared with AD-experiments so the front door key has been

changed; the key can be requested via Jenny. The space allotted to ISOLDE has to be shared

by all groups and the following rules will be applied:

  • Ground floor room to be used for large equipment which has to be easily accessible during beamtimes or is fragile

  • SSP lab to be decontaminated and used for test set-ups

  • On the 1st floor, shelves and several cupboards are available for smaller equipment

Equipment that doesn’t meet the above criteria should be moved to the CERN long-term

storage or returned to its home institute. M.J.G. Borge states that the collaboration is willing

to cover the cost, up to a certain limit,  of shipping any un-used equipment in building 275

back to its home institute.

The status of building 508 is then summarized. Physics users are now moving into the new

building with the laser DAQ rooms, the DAQ room for running setups, the TRAPs DAQ

room, the RILIS room and the visitor room already in use. There have been some issues with

the ventilation, external doors and cracks in the kitchen wall but they are all being followed

up. The EN and BE departments have now agreed to pay for the new kitchen in building 508.

However, as this will now be a project combined with the new control room, the kitchen will

probably not be installed before October 2015.

15. News from the ISOLDE Group and EURISOL DF (M.J.G. Borge) (see presentation)

M.J.G. Borge summarises the present manpower situation in the ISOLDE Physics Group.

  • < >: Haraldur Palle Gunnlaugsson (February 2015 to January 2016), Giacomo de Angelis (October 2015 to April 2016), Oliver Sorlin (February 2016 to August 2016).

    Corresponding Associate: Janne Pakarinen (July to December 2015), Ismael martel (September to November 2015)

  • < > Miguel Madurga (June 2014 to May 2016), Stephan Ettenbauer (June 2014 to January 2017), Akira Miyazaki (June 2014 to May 2016), Kara Lynch (January 2015 to December 2017) and Torben Molholt (February 2015 to January 2017). Doctoral Students: Razvan Lica, Fixed decay station doctoral student (September 2014 to August 2017); Stavroula Pallada (Doctoral Program with Greece for life sciences) (March 2014 to February 2017), Laura Grob (Doctoral Program with Germany) (June 2014 to May 2017) and Andre Welker (Doctoral Program with Germany) (February 2015 to January 2018).
  • User Support: Jenny Weterings (Indefinite contract with University of Oslo, signed)

  • The next application deadline for Fellows is 7th September 2015 and good candidates for a research fellowship are requested to apply. The next deadline for Corresponding and Scientific Associates is 18th September 2015.

The committee is informed that a separator course was held from 7th to 10th April and that it is planned to organise another course at the end of this year’s running period.  Also, the 2015 EURORIB conference, to which the ISOLDE collaboration contributes to financially, was held in Hohenrode, Germany; the next edition of the conference will be organized by GANIL. The next ISOLDE Workshop and Users meeting will take place at CERN 2nd-4th December 2015.

M.J. G. Borge informs the committee that ENSAR2 has been approved which is very good news for ISOLDE Users. It is hoped to use the funding to cover 50% of a technician post at ISOLDE as well as a two year applied postdoc position to develop a general purpose MR-ToF.

The status of the EURISOL DF proposal is presented which includes the goals of the project and the steps taken so far. The first meeting of the EURISOL DF working groups will be in September 2015 with the proposal text ready for June 2016.

The committee is informed that NuPECC launched its new long range plan for Nuclear Physics in June, in which ISOLDE plays a part.

M.J.G. Borge goes on to summarise the current status of the collaboration income and expenditure. The committee is told that Bulgaria, Slovakia and South Africa are all expected to sign the MoU and become members of the collaboration by the end of 2015 while Poland has made a funding request to be able to join the collaboration. While problems still exist regarding the contributions from India and Greece, Ireland now hopes to become an associate member of CERN which would facilitate it remaining a member of the ISOLDE collaboration.

16. A.O.B

  • N. Severijns explains that the WITCH experiment has now been completed and that discussions are ongoing about the future of the set-up. The committee agrees that the WITCH set-up can remain where it is until a decision is made.

  • J. Cederkall informs the committee that the NEDA collaboration (represented by J. Nyberg and J.J. Valiente-Dobon) have enquired whether there would be interest in bringing their detector to ISOLDE and have offered to make a presentation to the committee at the next meeting.

  • It is proposed that an event to celebrate the inauguration of HIE-ISOLDE could be organized on 9th November 2015.

  • Due to a lack of time, the NICOLE status report is postponed until the next ISCC meeting when it hoped that the senior researcher responsible for the NICOLE set-up will be present.

17. Dates of next meeting

The next ISCC meeting will take place at CERN on Tuesday November 10th 2015 starting at 09:00.

The meeting ends at 17:10h.

N.B. The overheads mentioned in the above minutes can be found via http://indico.cern.ch/event/398417/ .