Minutes of the ISOLDE Physics Group Meeting, February 28^th 2018

There were no comments to the minutes of the last ISOLDE PGM.

Technical news

• The Technical Group Meeting has returned to its normal format.
• HRS/GPS/REX/HIE-ISOLDE
• ISOLDE is being restarted and the cold checkout begins this week. The separators, as well as the target stations, were powered beginning of the week.
• All sectors are under vacuum. Power supplies are being tested.
• The HT1 application (HV power supply of the HRS front-end) has changed.
• Some IP-address retention issues have occurred for the separator magnetometers. It is a CERN-wide problem.
• The FC490 Faraday cup on GPS will be rechecked, in order to identify possible causes of the unstable/unreproducible readings. A replacement is available, but the intervention is complicated.
• A series of tests of the GPS cycling magnet will determine if the mass control is better after the exchange of the power supply and extraction electrode.
• RILIS
• Tests of Sm ionization are performed on GPS with a special target, completing the work which has begun last year (aiming at concrete efficiency values).
• What will follow is a test of the two-photon ionization of Si and the laser alignment work on both separators.
• Targets
•  BTY-line tests will take place on March 6^th.
• On March 7^th there will be tests of the access to the class A area. The ventilation of the area will be addressed on March 8^th and the beam-permit signature procedure will be initiated on March 19^th.
• Target production is on the way according to schedule.

Physics and schedule

• The schedule for the first part of 2018 will be released soon. Some concerned people have been contacted already with questions. It has been difficult to find someone to schedule early on GPS.

Safety

• Tomorrow the special access restriction during some HIE-ISOLDE runs this year (hall reclassification) will be discussed in a special meeting. ISOLDE will make a presentation of the document which has been prepared in the meantime.
• There will be a safety inspection of b. 275 on March 20^th. The building TSO (Magda Kowalska) will need help to prepare for the visit.
• An unusually large amount of equipment has accumulated around Miniball. It will be reviewed tomorrow.
• ISOLTRAP will have an electrical safety inspection tomorrow.
• Twice in the last couple of weeks, the HV patrol alarm was triggered and stayed on for minutes, without any emergency having been identified (possibily related to LINAC2 activities). This issue should be investigated in order to understand the cause and, in case of a future actual emergency, have the correct reaction.

Visits

•  Next week a large number of IAPS (International Association of Physics Students) members will visit ISOLDE.

AOB

•  The ISOLDE community is kindly encouraged to submit Newsletter contributions.

Seminar

•  The Meeting was followed by the seminar of Adam Vernon from the University of Manchester, with the title “Multi-photon ionization of accelerated laser-ablated ions”.

The next PG meeting will take place on Wednesday, March 7^th, at 14:00 in the ISOLDE visitors’ room (26-1-022). It will be 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?”

Minutes taken by VM