Reported by: Richard Heinz
Present: Erik Katsavounidis, Ioannis Katsavounidis, Massimo Orsini, Nicola
Zaccheo, Roberto Giuliani (absent week 1), Sophia Kyriazopoulou, Fabrizio Cei,
Richard Heinz
Week 1
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General Comment
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The run is going incredibly smoothly with few glitches, all minor.
Fast Monopole Trigger
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On Jan.8, 1999 the fast monopole trigger (FMT) rate abruptly increased.
The increase is coming from about six different boxes (scintillator tanks).
There is a characteristic time for this trigger which is constant at about
1.3 microseconds. The ERP trigger rate for these six boxes (or for any others
for that matter) has not increased. Some type of PMT afterpulsing is
suspected.
LED Firing
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Some inadvertent LED firing is apparently being caused when there
is a deluge of (unphysical) streamer tube activity.
Laser Repair
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A calibration laser has been fixed by replacing the cartridge with
one marked "may be low light." The reference PMT signal increased from
.5 V to 1.5 V. A brand new cartridge would give about 3 V.
PHRASE Spare MicroVAXes
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A VAX expert was brought in to service a broken spare PHRASE
microVAX. He inadvertently worked on the good spare by mistake and
broke it. He will be encouraged to return and fix both.
Spare PMTs
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There are 19 spare EMI PMTs. There are over 20 spare Hamamatsu
PMTs, but the EMI inventory is more critical as the EMIs are more vulnerable
to the Helium which leaks from the streamer tubes. He contamination causes
a gradually increasing TOHM trigger rate.
GC Trigger Calibration
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LEDs were used to perform gravitational collapse trigger calibrations
for both ERP and PHRASE triggers. Ioannis has made available a standard
calibration code. The calibration can be performed during a run. It takes 1.5
minutes and flags the calibration with a special prototype. Each of the
three microVAXes can be checked separately or all three together can be
checked.
ICRC Papers
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Eleven MACRO papers are planned to be presented at the August, 1999
International Cosmic Ray Conference in Utah, USA. The titles of these papers
are............
SEARCH FOR MAGNETIC MONOPOLES WITH THE MACRO DETECTOR
MACRO AS A TELESCOPE FOR NEUTRINO ASTRONOMY
OBSERVATION OF NEUTRINO OSCILLATIONS AT HIGH ENERGY BY MACRO
STUDY OF LOW ENERGY ATMOSPHERIC MUON NEUTRINOS IN MACRO
SEARCH FOR WIMPS USING UPWARD-GOING MUONS IN MACRO
MOON AND SUN SHADOWING OBSERVED BY THE MACRO DETECTOR
SEARCH FOR STEADY, MODULATED, AND VARIABLE COSMIC RAY SOURCES USING
UNDERGROUND MUONS IN MACRO
SEARCH FOR SIDEREAL ANISOTROPIES IN THE UNDERGROUND MUON INTENSITY
AS SEEN BY MACRO
TRANSITION RADIATION DETECTOR IN MACRO
DENSITY CORRELATIONS AND CLUSTER ANALYSIS IN HIGH MULTIPLICITY
EVENTS DETECTED BY THE MACRO EXPERIMENT
ANALYSIS OF SHOWER SIZE, GEV AND TEV MUON CONTENT OF EXTENSIVE
AIR SHOWERS AT 10^15 - 10^16 EV WITH EAS-TOP AND MACRO.
Week 2
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VAX Crashes
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There were 2 overnight VAX crashes. One was caused by s stopped
crate fan, the other cause is unknown. Neither crash stopped a run, just
prevented data collection from from two supermodules.
New Message System
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Run messages (such as problems, GC triggers) now ring a cellular
phone carried by Francesco Ronga. The header of the message appears in
writing on his phone. He calls the indicated phone number and hears a voice
synthesizer give him an audio of the complete message.
Calibration Runs Analyzed
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An Analysis of the calibration runs performed since Christmas,
1998 shows that SM 3-6 are reasonable with 10-15 problem tank ends out
of 630 total. SM 1-2 had ~ 100 problems out of 315 and it is suspected
that the wrong input data file was used.
Repaired Laser Usage
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The laser that was repaired last week (see Week 1 above) was
successfully used in an ERP calibration run. Though its low light level
hampered a thorough calibration.
FMT Work
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The 16-channel Philips latched discriminator associated with the
high FMT rate (see Week 1 above) was replaced by a new unit. Then the FMT
trigger rate went to zero. Next this new one was replaced by the second
(of two) new one and the FMT rate seems fine. So now 2 discriminators need
fixing, including one that is brand new.
Repaired Tanks
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Tank 6W02 side 1 had PMT plus base replaced and tank 6W04 side 1
had its base replaced. Both now work. (Each had had an old-style base as
opposed to the new design 'high voltage' base.)
Fake Box Time Jitter
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An LED-TDC calibration revealed that the Fake Box for SM 4
apparently has a time jitter of about one nsec.
Mu Calibration Code
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The muon calibration code is being rewritten. About 4k of the 6k
lines of code are complete. The new code will be subroutine-based. Several
small bugs (physics-type, not programming-type) are being corrected.