Standard Candles:
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Yiannis Katsavounidis
Roberto Giuliani
Massimo Orsini
Nicola Zaccheo
Sophia Kyriazoboulou
Shiftniks
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Paulo Lipari
Ornella Palamara
Roberta Antolini
Lori Grey
Daniel Levin
Data
----
We harvested bushels of spectacular data. Marginal down time was
enjoyed by all when uvax2 lost its lunch when an Italian
(streamer tube) CAMAC crate spun out of control on a
ruptured power suppy.
Interesting Numbers:
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Runs acquired ............................ 17331-17385
Muons acquired ............................ 14432
Monopoles acquired .......................... TBA
Dripping scintillator acquired/month (cc) ... 989
Activities:
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Yiannis & Roberto conducted the monthly MACRO-Valdez
mop-up and concluded that seepage rate is an
order of magnitude higher than previously.
The current rate is about one (imperial) gallon/annum
for the leakiest 1/3 of the detector.
They intend to clean the detector now every two
weeks instead of every four.
A Certain Collaborator Screws Up Again
(hope I'm not outta line)
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Yiannis' tank-end signal evaluation routines flagged
a number of tanks in which the photoelectron yield
appeared to be severly imbalanced by a factor of two.
One particularly offensive tank (one of my personal
favorites) was 2T11. After innummerable minutes of
arduous thinking and putzing we eliminated all the usual
reasons why PMTs signals become anemic. We concluded
that the tank, not the PMT chain was suffering. A
CHECK OF THE TANK END (SIDE 0- if you're following)
REVEALED THAT IT WAS EMPTY OF OIL. Gurnischt. An
investigation of the operations archives indicated
that the last operation was performed by
WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE on March 15, 1994. That is,
on or before that date the tank-end was drained and
never refilled. Tank 2T11 has been moaning pathetically
for 5 years, and noone noticed until now.
Tank-End-Ying-Yang
------------------
The North Face tank-ends muon level signals were
also unbalanced by a factor of two on all but
one tank (1N02). I've never been too fond of
the North Face, but I agreed to evaluate carefully
the gains. The QVT was harnessed for this purpose
and inspection of the SPE peaks showed that
the tanks were all nicely balanced, but
there was considerable variation in the absolute gain.
The average gain of the North Face was 4.2 pC with a
maximum deviation of 0.75 pC. We could
identify no clear reason why muon level signals should
be so disbalanced. This might be explained by
1) Chris X. Walter's Theory of Pollo Nero Occupatto il Tank-End
2) Sophia's filling one side with olive oil
3) systemtically distorted structures (i.e., busted things inside)
4) quantum efficency deviations
More Activies
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Yiannis performed a test of the ERP ADCs to see
what happens to the ADC count when time o' flights
exceed the TDC full scale. Answer: ADC remains
flat for 2.5 usec. At 3 usec side-0 ADCs register
a discontinuity.
I have put some effort into trying to quantify the
laser calibration data. Laser induced signals
in the reference PMT, when plotted against the
ERP ADC appear neither linear nor saturating.
By examining the reference ADC versus the optical
attenuator setting in a region where the PMT
ought to be linear it may be possble to calibrate
the attenutor. Initial results look promising-
it is possble over a limited range of setting
to fit linearly the log of the ADC versus
the attenutor. More work needs to be done
to confirm that the PMTs are not being operating
in non-linear regime. One test to be performed
will be to swap the PMTs/ADCs with the corresponding
attenuators to determine the fits results are altered.
The current (preliminary) fits indicate that the attenuators
may have a different optical extinction per step than
that specified in a 8 year old dogeared manual.
This result remains to be carefuully checked.
Fun Stuff
-------------
Speaking of rocks, some fine citezen deposited a bag of them at the
tunnel entrance and then telephoned a bomb threat to
the carabinieri. This was evidently in response
to the L'Aquila mayor's boasting of the security of the tunnel
following the nearly unimaginable inferno in the
Mt. Blanc passage a few days ago. The tunnel was closed
to passage for most of the day.
Good Food
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Two evenings ago I enjoyed the good fortune to dine in a
splendid, highly ornate restaurant in L'Aquila. A brochure at
the establishment's entranced assured us of spectacular cuisine
served with impeccable sevice in an elegant 19th century
environment- and for only a modest monetary forfeit. To be sure-
the meal was standard wonderful Italian- as palatable as it was treif-
and the decorative features certainly evoked the last century-
marble columns, Roman eagles gracing the corners and
in particular the ceiling frescoe depciting a zaftik nymph quaffing
vino while being attended to by pudgy cherubs. The owner of
this bourgesois, capitalist swine, doghouse of a restaurant
a blackshirted communist who was eager to berate me for
bombing Belgrade.