Minutes of the May 11, 2002 Meeting of the Fermilab Users' Executive Committee (UEC) REMINDERS: Users Meeting June 10-11, then New Perspectives, register now! "Your career, your future" Town meeting at Users Center May 29 5PM, pizza ... Attendees: Robin Erbacher(robine@fnal.gov) Joey Huston(huston@pa.msu.edu) Sally Koutsoliotas(koutslts@bucknell.edu) Larry Nodulman(ljn@fnal.gov) Rob Plunkett(plunk@fnal.gov) Rick St. Denis(stdenis@fnal.gov) Benn Tannenbaum(benn@physics.ucla.edu) Wendy Taylor{wendyt@fnal.gov) Gordon Watts(gwatts@fnal.gov) Chris White(cwhite@fnal.gov) Nate Goldschmidt (GSA) Mike Kirby (GSA) Heather Ray (GSA) Absent: John Conway(conway@fnal.gov) Roger Rusack(rusack@hep.umn.edu) Sherry Towers(smjt@fnal.go) Freya Blekman(GSA) Michel Sorel (GSA) Guests Mike Witherell, Homer Neal Benn called the meeting to order at 10 AM. We went over the agenda and immediate prospects, next meeting June 1, Users Meeting June 10/11. Illinois State Science Fair The UEC took up a collection to pay for Fermilab hats, t-shirts, mugs and videos that were presented to four winners at the Science Fair May 4. The winners were, high school Jeffrey Bush (Niles North), who will also get a $100 check from URA (thanks!), and Mari Gordon (Northside College Prep.), middle school Douglas Finney (Dundee Middle) and Matthew Drake (SIUE Charter). Congratulations! Mike Witherell: state of the lab Luminosity - peak bests and weekly averages are improving and we are approaching 4 pb-1 per week. There has been good progress even before the cooling tank installation that will be done in the June shutdown. Recent improvements have included better 150 GeV lifetime,improvement in step 13 of the squeeze, and improved proton coalescing. The June shutdown is scheduled for 12 days with a 2 day startup, plus 2 days of contingency. The new cooling and accumulator lattice could bring a factor of two improvement in antiproton emittance. The new cooling should be commissioned in weeks. The 6 week shutdown in October/November is driven by final installation work on the recycler. Halo problems track with the F11 vacuum, thought to come from beam heating of ferrites which outgas, although this is still not certain. It was noted that while peak luminosity has not exceeded run 1 records, accumulation per store has, due to improved lifetime. In addition to help coming from within the laboratory, there has been some success in getting help from outside: Mike Harrison from BNL attending internal advisory group, simulation work from SLAC, group of 4 from LBL. More possibilities are being pursued. Run 2b funding is in conflict with flat funding in 03/04 ; the lab is not asking for HEP funding to be redirected to FNAL. BTeV will have little 03/04 impact, only continuing salaries; it will be a P5 early agenda item. The run 2b detector upgrades, unlike 2a, need to "hit the ground running." By current projections, silicon irradiation problems point to early 06; LHC physics start now seems like late 08. Incremental money in 03/04 is needed to make the most of the 100 M$/year operating cost for Tevatron for several years later. A task force is looking into the detailed tradeoffs of 132 vs 396 ns, folding in realism and leveling possibilities. MiniBoone is full, working and the beamline is being turned on, now doing hot horn exercises. Numi excavation is almost complete, the contractor is keeping the most recent schedule, the next contract is out for bid now. A Lehman review for NuMI is coming up. Security: the SECON level remains fixed but small adjustments in implementation are being made; it is now OK to come on site to look at the buffalo. Seven areas of the lab will have proximity card readers for access; new cards will be issued. Areas include CDF, D0, Feynman and the control room; these will become the protected areas. We thanked Mike for once again sharing his views. Rick StDenis: Visa followup on DC trip At April Burke's suggestion, we had targeted Foreign Relations people on the DC visit, emphasizing the international nature of our work and the problem that there is no appropriate visa for a foreign scientist to be spending periods of time at a US lab over many years working on a project here as an employee there. Rick, Freya Bleckman and Eduardo Silva (SLAC) had a long meeting with Peter Zimmerman, formerly at FNAL and DESY, now Chief Scientist for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He agreed that there is a problem, and suggested that the restructuring of INS offered an opportunity if someone could quickly write something. A survey to document the problem was also strongly suggested. April Burke and Associates seemed appropriate for writing the language; Rick informed URA, Roy Rubinstein and Bruce Chrisman who in turnnotified SLAC, BNL and JLAB. URA approved the writing assignment and the text was written and sent in. The survey got 671 responses of which 526 had been analyzed. Most responses were from Fermilab but there were significant numbers from Brookhaven, SLAC and JLAB. The vast majority came from experimentalists. Fifty three countries were represented, more than half came from Italy, Russia, Germany and Britain. More than half were EU. Many spent extended summer vacations in the US, others most of the year. The fraction of the time spent in the US seems to be growing. About half the respondents indicated that they first came to the US within the last 4 years; there seems to be growth in visiting. There were further questions on entry experiences which got mixed reviews. Results are being summarized and sent in. Joey Huston: DC visit follow up (Homer Neal joined on the phone) Joey reminded us to send in our summaries and follow up with thanks to those we met. He followed up his DC visits by attending a subcommittee meeting in Lansing, and will follow up on the OSTP visit as well. The NSF looks OK with support seen for the doubling program, an interesting question is what effect this will have on the DOE Office of Science. Joey will keep track of reactions to make use of them for next years visit. Several good contacts were made. Homer: Feedback from Pat Fulton and the SLAC Directorate The NSF commotion distracted from what should have been a DOE focus. More effort should have been made in advance to come to joint consensus on priorities and message. The packets came late and the SLAC people did not know what they were getting. The visa issue would not have been a SLAC priority. But, overall, it was helpful. [Thanks!] Robin: Users Meeting The program is mostly set. There is a web page to register and the program will be posted. The New Perspectives GSA sessions which follow have web pages and they are lining up speakers. See http://www.fnal.gov/orgs/fermilab_users_org/ for a links to both and to register. Subcommittee reports: GSA: Linear collider lecture series can be viewed from http://www.fnal.gov/orgs/gsa/classes/linear_colliders_02/index.html Rick/inreach: the town meeting for the 29th has been arranged, a message will be sent out soon. Outreach: not much new, the Museum of Science and Industry is having a conference in June on displays and Chris may attend. QC: will send out assignment reminder, meet with Bruce Chrisman. Robin: email list - users are being added, Fermilab lists have been mailed to find people who should be on the users list. Benn: according to Bruce C. the lab is changing accounting such that the three letter codes we know and love will be replaced by some number of digits. Next UEC meeting will be June 1.