Chairman: Karsten Riisager

Scientific Secretary: Mats Lindroos

Present: Luis Fraile, Mark Huyse, Mats Lindroos,  Karsten Riisager, Thierry Stora

Excused: Reiner Krücken, Thomas Otto, Peter Butler, Piet van Duppen, Roland Garoby, Jacques Lettry, Richard Catherall, Marek Lewitowics

1. Minutes of last meeting

• The minutes from the last meeting were approved.

2. Target and ion source development at ISOLDE since the last meeting

• Thierry Stora gave a presentation (see file below) in which he started with summarizing target and ion source developments at ISOLDE since the last meeting of the upgrade group. The main achievements are: i) a new version of the graphite line target for Ni and Cu beams, ii) the dual transfer line target for test of neutral beam merging in the ion source, iii) a new version of the quartz transfer line target for a new temperature range and iv) the on-line test of a negative ion source for At and F beams. He also reviewed the on-going work at ISOLDE: i) the mini-mono test for C, N and O beams, ii) the new SiC target material for ^21,22,23Mg beams, iii) the LIST ion source together with low work function cavities, iv) a new versions of the negative ion source and v) an extended temperature range of the quartz transfer line target. The proposed future developments include a test with off-line collected ⁴⁴Ti and selective thermo chromatography with new materials from ORNL. The longer term plans include the development of new types of UCx target material within e.g. an EU JRA for which ISOLDE is taking the initiative and a possible development of refractory elements beams at ISOLDE using a new concept from Leuven using an ISOL target in a gas cell together with a RILIS system.

3. Key resources for ISOLDE and new priorities for target and ion source developments

• Luis Fraile presented (see file below) a first study of  special resources required at ISOLDE for the scientific programme as agreed by INTC and Research Board. The assumption is that present trends will continue and that the approved physics proposals should decide on the distribution of shifts between different systems within the overall framework of shifts agreed for ISOLDE per year in the MoU. In short, the present trends predicts that we will in the future request some 215 shifts per year with Actinide targets corresponding to 13±1 target units per year. For RILIS, there is strong pressure on this special resource and the trends predicts over 170 shifts per year corresponding to more than 2000 hours per year of RILIS running for the coming years beyond 2007. Another special resource is REX-ISOLDE and Luis predicts that we will need 150 shifts per year, a request that could increase to 165 shifts per year if the present trend of annually increasing requests continues. Note that the user request is significantly above the resource request given by Luis as it is made taking other scheduling consideration into account and an a priori knowledge of the hitherto available resources.
• Luis also made a summary of the request for target and ion source development from the approved programme, LoI and new ideas. Based on approved proposals and pending proposals the following new beams are requested with priority 1:  SrF+ for REX (IS451),  Hg REX (IS452), 14O (IS413 Add.), Ge and Se beams (P225), ⁷²Kr (P228), LIST - ⁶²Ga (P231) and Fr supression for Hg and Tl beams (P232). For priority 2 the following beams are requested: rare earth beams (flourides) for mass measurements for proposal 230 and ⁴⁴Ti for LoI 70. For priority 3 the negative ions beams combined with ISCOOL is an interesting new idea. The upgrade groups web pages for priorities for target R&D (Priority 1, Priority 2, Priority 3 and accomplished developments) will be updated ASAP.

4. News from AB concerning new projects and upgrade work

• Mats Lindroos reported that the HIE-ISOLDE project is making progress. The grant from Belgium and from the Catholic university of Leuven has made it possible to open a four year engineer/physicist post at ISOLDE for R&D work on the linac. The material money will enable prototyping work to start this year. The Cockcroft institute in Daresbury is keen to collaborate on the development of the linac and Mats has recently visited the institute with Matteo Pasini and Peter Butler to discuss how this work can be organized. The UK Nuclear Physics community are preparing a statement of interest to the new funding agency (STFC) in the UK for a proposal to finance the upgrade of REX to 5.5 MeV/u. This would still require resources from CERN for the infrastructure (ventilation, cooling water, helium liquefier etc) along the principles outlined in the CERN DG's white paper for future projects at CERN (Theme 4). Mats is also discussing with other ISOLDE member states possible national grant applications in support of this development. Any ideas for proposals to support HIE-ISOLDE are warmly welcome, please contact Mats directly. The two other financed activities in the HIE-ISOLDE project, the RILIS and LARIS sub-projects and the RFQ cooler are making good progress (see below).
• The mini-move activity has completed and the mini-ball experiment is now positioned in the extension of the experimental hall. The move required the beam-line system to be extended and some of the existing elements to be re-aligned. The beam spot should improve as new degrees of freedom for beam focusing has been added with the two new quadrupoles. The REX facility is now being re-commissioned.
• The RFQ cooler is being commissioned off-line with surface and plasma ion sources and in CW and pulsed mode, The emittance measurements performed so far shows that the cooling is as efficient as predicted in CW mode and for surface ionized beams. The work to test the cooling and efficiency for all modes of operation is progressing and should be completed for installation in 2007. The necessary preparation in the target area and installation positions were done during the shutdown and the platform and HV transfer tube will be installed in June-July. The installation is scheduled for October.
• The placing of an order for new pump lasers for the RILIS system is imminent. The LARIS lab will ionization tests with simple two level ionization schemes in June. The system will be improved with a new TOF spectrometer which will be installed in September and October.

5. AOB (All)

• The next meeting of the upgrade group will take place Thursday 13 November 2006 at 15:00. The RILIS team is asked to make a status report at the next meeting on the LARIS and RILIS activities.

Minutes by Mats Lindroos,