Present at the Gran Sasso: Gray, Katsavounidis, Katsavounidis,
Kyriazopoulou, Longley, Slava Lukin (Swarthmore), Orth,
Saggese, Craig Shockley (Swarthmore), Stalio.
Major projects over the course of the shift were installation of the
VME/NIM automatic crate monitor system, continued WFD hardware
calibration work, and ongoing data acquisition.
The SWARTHMORE crew (LONGLEY, LUKIN, SHOCKLEY) stuffed and installed
VME/NIM monitor boards. These sense the crate power supply lines and
send a global "fail" to a CAMAC input register if any falls below
about 80% of nominal (absolute magnitude). Readout occurs via KATE, a
short subroutine called during normal EMILY execution every two hours.
The VME/NIM system extends EMILY's coverage from the CAMAC and PMT HV
systems to the VME (Waveform digitizer and ERP) systems as well as the
NIM bins. Now all the critical MACRO scintillator electronics systems
are automatically monitored. Because KATE latches errors, she notes
and logs all voltage droops, including transients. Those which
persist generate email warnings. Installation is final except for
replacing the present "cobbled" cable system as soon as connectors
arrive from the US.
CHRIS ORTH reports that there is at least one good spare WFD card
right now, and probably at least two more, but there has been a little
trouble with readout in the test WFD crate. IOANNIS is working on
this. CHRIS s also compared WFD and ERP charge integration to
determine whether the WFD overshoot fixes have altered performance.
Aside from the N and S face, which may not be well calibrated in the
ERP, things look "reasonable" to zeroth order (my interpretation of a
more detailed email I got from Chris).
SOPHIA, ERIK, and LORI are still making good progress on calibrations
for extremely low (SOPHIA AND ERIK) and extremely high (LORI) light
levels. There is considerable ongoing work by IOANNIS and STEFANO as
well on the low-light side, and they have set up a beautiful LED
apparatus in the darkbox which they will be able to read out via the
spare WFD crate. In the immediate future this allows them to perform
long-term LED output variation tests, but the system will have more
general applications. The benefits of being able to record and log
test setup data via the spare WFD are obvious. In addition SOPHIA and
ERIK have succesfully resurrected the slow monopole calibration
software.
PAOLO tells us that there have been various detector problems, without
as much smooth running as we would like in the first half of July.
The SM1 LIP was replaced with the spare, but this is a "flakey"
condition and so it may be hard to find stable problems with the
former SM1 module. SM3 ERP also temporarily booted, contemporaneously
with the installation of the new ERP VME monitor. The new system was
of course blamed, but was vindicated when a blown fuse was discovered
on the ERP supervisor. There are also some ongoing HIPT (CSPAM)
trigger problems which are still under investigation.
In Passing
The new Director of the LNGS, Alessandro Bettini, took over in
mid-June. Bettini is on ICARUS. Piero will retain a leadership role
in the CERN-LNGS long baseline project.
Lori Gray now expects to have at least another six months in Italy
compliments of the INFN. We are all extremely pleased and grateful.
Casa BU hosted an excellent 4th of July party attended by a dozen
patriots, expatriots, green card-holders, and just plain Italians.
The picnic was complete with BBQed hot dogs and hamburgers, potato
salad (compliments of Chris Orth) and, much to everyone's suprise,
hoards and hoards of mosquitos. Also three LARGE watermelons, two of
which went home with Sara Gray, a very happy eight year old.
Just in case no one has mentioned it lately, the technicians (Stefano
Stalio, Paolo Saggese, and the hardware half of Ioannis, as well as Max
who was on vacation) are doing a fantastic job.
THE STATUS AND RECENT RESULTS AT GRAN SASSO
3 July 1997
The annual LNGS summary meeting was extremely forward-looking, with an
emphasis on a CERN/LNGS neutrino beam. Note that in Bettini's talk
about future experiments in the beam, LVD was prominently featured.
MACRO was of course not mentioned. Gallex and Borexino were very
excited about their future, Gallex in particualr as the INFN just
purchased its Gallium (PHYSICS TODAY, June 97). EAS-TOP talked about
correlations between surface-level muon and electrons. EAS-TOP is
presently scheduled to be shut down in 1996 (no, this is not a typo,
this is Italy; "1996" is correct) but they are working on an
"extension." The general feeling, however, was that it _will_
eventually disappear. Crescenti gave a very interesting talk on "slow
earthquakes," seismic displacements that occur over the course of many
minutes or more, which had been dietected in the Gran Sasso
interferometer (as well as a handful of other sights). Zichichi
implied that LVD had discovered a new type of penetrating radiation,
but then explained that they had only shown that the large-angle
(neutrino-dominated) muons lose energy at a lesser rate than their
low-angle (direct cosmic ray muon-dominated) counterparts. They
actual data were only significant at the 1.5 sigma level. Giorgio
gave a standard summary of monopole limits, GC, and neutrino
astronomy. The upward-going neutrino result also appeared.
Pietropaolo described ICARUS in great detail, with their plans to
build a 2x300 tonne (530 tonne active) module for transportation to
the LNGS within the next few years (I didn't get a firm date). It
will live in Hall C along with Borexino. There were some snide
comments about the near/far Long Baseline neutrino spectrum
differences having been miscalculated by the MINOS group. As far as I
could tell these comments were inaccurate (wishful thinking?). Piero
finished with a summary of the 53 M Swiss Franc CERN beam to the LNGS
and a description of NOE (Neutrino Oscillation Experiment) detector.
This iron-and-concrete scintillating fiber detector is now considering
the addition of a significant amount of emulsion (not yet quantified,
however), which sounded similar to the recent MINOS rumors.
CASA BU NO MATCH FOR SWARTHMORE FRONT LINE
Another round in the continuing battle between Casa BU and
Swarthmore HEP ended in a rout this week as the BU Apartment again
suffered greivous physical harm from its Swarthmore inhabitants.
Action began early in the shift as La Lavatrice was almost
immediately knocked out of the game. Team Swarthmore was confident,
but courteous. "It's a very nice apartment," admitted Slava Lukin,
"but that washing machine just can't handle much mass. It's not built
like the sturdy industrial models of my homeland."
Action continued with the now-famous "flaming pillow" incident
of mid week, and culminated dramatically Saturday morning with the
complete separation of the shower head from the bathroom wall. This
only minutes before "i Diavolini Pennsylvanii" were to depart for
America. "Well," remarked Team Swarthmore Captain Craig Shockley on
his way out the door, "we gave it a chance. But the da__ thing
wouldn't spray where we needed it. And we don't have to put up with
that."
There was no comment from the utterly despondent Casa BU.