Meetings and Minutes
Minutes of the February 25, 2006 UEC Meeting
Present: Alton, Casey, Chertok (video), Diehl, Finley, Gollin (video),
Kopp (video), Merritt, Nguyen, Quinn, Trischuk (video)
Apologies: Bertram, Hughes
From the GSA: Cuenca Almenar, Degenhardt,
Welty-Rieger
The Chair called the meeting to order at 9:00 am.
CHAIR'S REPORT
Chair Kopp reported on a followup with ES&H regarding the new
safety regulations. Several hundred users have been registered
since the beginning of this initiative. The process of having
ITNAs done for all these people has not yet begun; the
machinery of notifications using the database is still under
construction.
The Committee then heard reports from the DC Trip and Users Meeting
subcommittees.
DC TRIP (Quinn, Chertok, Diehl, Finley, Hughes, Merritt, Nguyen)
Breese Quinn, subcommittee Chair, reported that currently (one and
a half weeks away from trip), SLUO and UEC have 78 confirmed
appointments with Congressional offices. There will also be
a special joint meeting with Science committee staff. The meetings
with URA, OMB, DOE, and NSF have been scheduled as well. The
informational materials for distribution to the Congressional offices
were reviewed.
USERS MEETING (Casey, Trischuk, Bertram, Alton, Nguyen,
Kopp)
Brendan Casey, subcommittee Chair, reported on speakers who have
been enlisted:
- Robin Staffin - News from DOE
- Norm Augustine (National Academy of Sciences) - public lecture on
the Gathering Storm report
- Michel Della Negra - CMS/LHC readiness
- Hiro Aihara - The next decade in Japan
- Jon Kotcher - News from NSF and DUSEL
The subcommittee is still seeking additional speakers.
The budget for the Users Meeting is still to be determined.
Catering is being arranged for the reception, which this year
will be a combined UEC-GSA event. Festa Italiana
will take place this year, after the public lecture.
In planning the physics talk schedule, the committee will try
to get talks which focus on particular subjects, plus extras,
rather than very broad talks.
DISCUSSION WITH DIRECTOR ODDONE
How do you imagine the relationship between Fermilab and
URA will evolve if the contract bid from the joint URA/U-Chicago
management effort is successful?
Adding the University of Chicago in partnership brings the
advantage of a university fully committed to the success of
Fermilab, and its associated strong connections in the state of Illinois. A
contract transition, whether to the proposed URA-UofC
partnership or another contractor, should be seamless for users
(as for almost all employees).
We will hear from Ioanis Kourbanis on shutdown activities, but
do you have any update from your perspective about what is
projected, given the TeV quench, zebra mussel weather, etc? If
the shutdown goes longer for TeV, can the neutrino program come
back up sooner?
The shutdown started early because of damage from a quench.
This was the result of a concatenation of several factors - this
has been typical of quenches that lead to damage to the Tevatron.
We are analyzing several factors that may have played a role in the
recent damaging quenches. Some of the associated factors could be
the unusually long run (15 months), the movement of some accelerator
physicists from the Tevatron to LHC and ILC, or simply the age of
some of the components. We will continue to work on the reliability
issues to make sure we have a successful Tevatron run.
Would you extend the shutdown in order to do more extensive
maintenance? No, we would be very reluctant to extend the
shutdown and would prefer to get techs from other areas to
augment the technical force during the shutdown. If the shutdown
were extended, it would become difficult to meet this year's luminosity
goal. But pulling in more techs causes risks in other areas; for example,
this might delay the schedule to get a spare horn for the neutrino program
finished. Achieving the luminosity goals for this fiscal year will be
difficult even if we maintain the shutdown
schedule; we have to average 90 inverse picobarns per month after
the shutdown in order to meet the goals.
What might be expected to transpire next week at the HEPAP
meeting next week in DC?
The next HEPAP meeting will hear a number of reports which
have been bottled up, waiting for HEPAP to resume its
meetings. There will be reports from NUSAG, P5, and DETF,
so this will be an important meeting. Unfortunately Director
Oddone (and also SLAC Director Dorfan) will be on a previously
scheduled visit to India, exploring possible Indian contributions
to the ILC.
Any last minute advice for us when we head to Washington on the
8th of March? What will be the focus of the R&D Caucus held with
Brian Greene?
The Director repeated his urging, as at the previous UEC meeting,
that the attendees in Washington should focus on showing their
enthusiasm for the field. He stated that the presentation by
Brian Greene for members of Congress is also intended to showcase
the excitement to be found in HEP.
What was learned/concluded at the recent review of
Advanced Accelerator R&D conducted at Fermilab?
Fermilab presented its work on LHC magnets, ILC, photonjector, and some
work on the muon collider. There were presentations by other
groups, including universities. The Director was asked
whether university participation in ILC accelerator R&D could
find a home here, and if not, where should it find a home. He
pointed out that the ILC is not considered 'advanced accelerator
R&D' in these terms. The Director noted that AARD went up by $5M
in the FY07 budget request, while the ILC went up by $30M. He
said that the money available for ILC R&D presently is largely
administered by the Global Design Effort, and that anyone, including
university groups, can make proposals to the GDE R&D board. He also
noted the asymmetry between the administration of resources
for the ILC in the US (where the GDE has a big influence on the
distribution of funds) and those of other countries.
Any news from the ICFA meeting (held last week at CERN)?
There were discussions about the rotation cycle of accelerator
conferences among regions. Also, an important question is
that of when FALC (the Funding Agencies for the Linear Collider)
becomes a more formal body. Director Oddone's
position is that it should be talking about defining the rules
for a bid to host the Linear Collider. The committee asked
what can be done to move in that direction. The Director
thinks that quite a lot can be done once the Reference Design
Report is issued by the Global Design Effort.
ACCELERATOR DIVISION SHUTDOWN PLANS
Ioanis Kourbanis gave the committee an update on plans for
the current shutdown. As mentioned to the committee previously
by Dave McGinnis, the major focus will be on machine upgrades
required for the neutrino program. Running two neutrino
experiments means that higher rep rates and higher intensities
are needed. The shutdown work will aim at opening the Booster
and Main Injector apertures, installing pulse magnets with
higher rep rates, and reducing losses. The other focus during
the shutdown will be on routine maintenance: TeVatron cryo work,
water system maintenance, and power supply and feeder maintenance.
Most of the components of the Run II machine upgrade have already
been installed.
A new injection system for the Booster will be installed, which
uses a simplified string of 3 magnets instead of 4. The new
system will be a better lattice match and will be capable of
15Hz rate, improved from 7.5 Hz. The Booster dump will be
relocated. The committee asked if experiments would be
possible in the new dump location; no, this capability will
be lost. New water manifolding and more reliable power supplies
for the 400 MeV line will be installed.
Major work in the Main Injector includes the installation of four
collimators and more instrumentation in the MI-8 line. The aperture
will be increased by installing wide aperture quads at Injection/
Extraction Areas. The MI-8 collimators will have an outer
sheath of marble to improve radiation resistance.
Work in the Recycler Ring will include installation of a new
damper system for improved response, and replacement of 30 mil
flying wires with 5 mil wires, to reduce emittance growth during
flies.
In the Pbar Source, motorized stands will be installed on the
D60 extraction kicker. This will remove the need to introduce
a beam bump. The TeV shutdown activities are repairing the
cold leaks at E-2 and F4, unrolling some quads, and replacing
and adding some separators with higher voltage.
Kourbanis was asked if, after this shutdown, the accelerator
complex would be ready for another very long run. He said
that the neutrino program would require some more shutdowns,
probably of 1-2 months duration.
NEWS FROM THE PARTICLE ASTROPHYSICS CENTER
Rocky Kolb gave an overview of what is going on at
Fermilab in astrophysics. The Particle Astrophysics
Center at Fermilab encompasses these projects:
Theoretical astrophysics, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey,
the Pierre Auger Observatory, the Cryogenic Dark Matter
Search, the Supernova/Acceleration Project, and the
Dark Energy Survey. He briefly described each area.
The Theoretical Astrophysics Group is the oldest
astrophysics effort at Fermilab, established in
1983. There are 10-15 members (depending on the
level of visitors). The group is partially funded
by a NASA grant. It has published over a thousand
papers since its inception, and sent 36 of its
postdocs on to university or lab positions.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (E885) was initiated in 1991.
The project has ~ 150 scientists from 14 institutions,
and funding from the Sloan Foundation, DOE, NSF, NASA,
USNO, Monbusho, Max Planck and universities. Its first
5 year mission was to find the redshifts of 10**6 galaxies
and 200,000 quasars, and to understand the role of dark
matter in shaping structure. SDSS II has just been
funded for another 3 years by the Sloan Foundation and
NSF. Sloan publications have passed 10000 citations.
The Pierre Auger Project (E881) began in 1995. It has
~250 scientists from 16 US institutions and 16 other
countries, and is funded by DOE, NSF, and 13 foreign
agencies. It is managed by URA. Th project is designed
to measure the spectrum, source, and composition of the
highest energy cosmic rays, using a huge (3000 sq km)
array in the Argentine pampas. The experiment presented
38 papers at a recent cosmic ray conference (ICRC).
The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (E891) began in 1996,
and has ~50 scientists from 12 US institutions, with
funding from DOE and NSF. The detector is located in the
Soudan mine in northern Minnesota. It currently provides
the best limit in the world, by a factor of 4, on the
direct detection of dark matter. It has already probed a
significant fraction of MSSM model space, and will be
able to achieve another factor of 3-4 in the limit.
Two new initiatives are underway which have participation
from the PAC. One is the Dark Energy Survey, proposed in 2004,
which would survey 5000 square degrees of the southern galactic
cap, using a new 2.2 sq deg CCD camera to be constructed
for the Blanco 4m telescope at Cerro Tololo International
Observatory. Construction is projected for 2005-2009, and
observation would be from 2009-2014. This project would
measure the w parameter in the dark energy equation of
state to ~5%, and place constraints on dw/dz.
The other new initiative is the Supernova Acceleration
Project (SNAP). This is proposed as the NASA/DOE Joint
Dark Energy Mission. The R&D on the project is being
led by LBNL; Fermilab joined the collaboration in 2004.
Possible projects further on the horizon are a second Auger
array in North America, and SuperCDMS.
The Particle Astrophysics Center has as a goal to be an
intellectual center that unifies and focuses the astrophysics
program at Fermilab, and enhances its effectiveness and
recruiting ability. Its membership is open to all
Fermilab employees working on existing astrophysics and
new initiatives. The Center also aspires to assist the
user community involved in its programs.
There are 'rules of engagement' governing what projects
the Center participates in. These should be projects
that require the resources of a national lab, and for
which the talents and techniques available at Fermilab
are relevant to the project. The Center wants to
participate in strength, to participate along with
universities and other labs, and to participate in the
science of the projects as well as the construction and
operation.
There was some discussion between the Committee and Kolb
regarding how to define an astrophysics user community
for Fermilab, and how to integrate its representation
within the Users Organization. One suggestion which
will be applied this year is to make sure the collaboration
management of Center experiments receives sufficient
advertisement of the annual Users Meeting. Also, the
UEC Chair will communicate will these experiments to
explain the mission of the Users Organization.
NEW BUSINESS
No new business was proposed.
FUTURE MEETINGS
Future meeting dates: Apr 1; May 6
DC Trip - March 7-10
Users Meeting - May 31-Jun 1
Submitted by Wyatt Merritt, UEC Secretary
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