Subject: Videocon minutes
From: Kate Scholberg (schol@budoe.bu.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 21 1999 - 21:03:00 EDT
Hi all,
Thanks to all for the meeting; here are the minutes. Apologies in advance
for any errors or omissions.
News for experiments:
--------------------
* AMANDA: Adam Bouchta reported. They have some analysis, written up and
presented at the latest ICRC, showing good signal to noise out to 10 kpc.
Mainz has joined the effort and will be working on the new DAQ; a new student
will be working on the new online trigger. New strings will be deployed this
austral summer. They are working on improving accessibility; currently they
are still at 10 hours/day but there is some possibility of an Iridium phone
(which however has some problems).
* SNO: Art McDonald and Clarence Virtue reported. They continue to work
on understanding background and improving calibrations. They are now pretty
much in a steady-running mode, >80% livetime. Hardware threshold is now at
about 2.5 MeV. They are working on understanding various sources of stray
light which could cause supernova triggers: flashers (spontaneous and
blasting-induced) and static-electricity-induced sparking; all of these are
well distinguishable from real events. They have a prompt real-time
supernova monitor operating in low-priority mode (with higher priority given
to writing data to tape), plus a fully efficient offline search. They are
still working on determining efficiencies, developing an interface for
operators, etc. SNO remains live for supernova during calibrations (although
the prompt alarm system may not be).
* Super-K: Mark Vagins reported from UCI (unfortunately Mozumi could not
connect this time). Work is now in progress towards improving promptness of
the alert. Currently, there is a delay before the supernova monitor sees the
data, due to various processing steps (such as the low-threshold fast vertex
fit). The plan is to bypass some of these steps and do a prompt burst search
on a dedicated machine, which could result in an alert with about a 5 minute
delay. Timescale is 1-2 months for these changes to be implemented. Super-K
remains in continuous running mode; there is some chance of a 3-month
downtime for an upgrade next summer, but that may be postponed until summer
2001.
* LVD: Pietro Antonioli reported. They are completing the 3rd tower which
will bring the liquid scintillator mass up to 1 kton. They are also
improving the DAQ, and building in more modularity, to improve sensitivity
during calibrations and livetime. They has have a new preprint on SN burst
analysis from the time period of the recent GRB burst.
* OMNIS: Alec Murphy reported. The WIPP site in New Mexico is now being
fitted out as an underground laboratory. Work on the proposed 10 kton Fe or
Pb detector continues. Theoretical calculations of cross-sections on Pb and
Fe proceed and predicted yields are more or less consistent with original
estimates. Thought is also going into non-SN neutrino physics for OMNIS. On
the experimental side, a second prototype is going into operation shortly at
OSU.
* MACRO: I reported. Status has not changed. MACRO is currently running
with very high livetime, with dual SN detection systems. We will continue to
run at least until the official MACRO shutdown date of May 1, 2000.
Down-time Coordination
----------------------
I reported. It's clearly to everyone's benefit to try to arrange major
down-time to be as non-overlapping as possible. My suggestion for doing this
is to have the SNEWS group maintain a (secure) website where scheduled
down-time of greater than 3 hours or so duration is reported as soon as it is
planned. Each experiment can designate a representative whose job it is to
keep this up to date. Experiments can then check the site before scheduling
calibrations and maintenance. It's intended to be "first come first serve",
but flexible in the case of conflict. For instance, if two or more
experiments want to schedule something at the same time, coordination can
happen between the reps and/or advisory board members.
We could also grade the down-time (red for dead, yellow for calibrations
during which there's still some sensitivity, and green for live,
according to Y. Suzuki's suggestion). We may also
want to post major unscheduled downtime, e.g. power
failures of known long duration.
This kind of arrangement will require collaboration approval;
timescale is a few months.
Timing Tests
------------
Clarence Virtue has been working on the idea of the traveling atomic clock
time standard; he's been trying to get Rob Douglas of NRC involved. Rob
Douglas will be running a time standards course in Ottawa on Oct 13 that
Clarence and his student Mike Schwendener (and possibly I) will attend, which
could be a good opportunity to get something going. Super-K is doing an
atomic clock test (for extra checks of K2K beam timing; it probably won't be
a regular thing); I'll try to find out more to see if any experience can be
lent.
Secondary Server
----------------
Pietro suggested setting up a secondary coincidence server at LNGS.
Some code changes would be necessary. I'm willing to help work on this,
if a secure and dedicated machine can be provided.
Security Issues
---------------
We had a general discussion of security issues. Various jobs need to be done
to make our coincidence server really secure. The first step an
implementation of secure sockets and PGP-signed messages. Alec volunteered
to do this. However, it may require a good deal more work, plus the
knowledge and experience of real security experts, to truly verify that we're
safe from hackers. We may need to have an official security expert whose
responsibility it is to make sure our system is secure. Nobody has any
particular candidates in mind, but we should think about trying to recruit
someone, perhaps from one of our experimental collaborations, soon.
AAS Meeting
-----------
John Bahcall is organizing a supernova session for the AAS meeting in
January. There will also be some neutrino experiment talks. Art suggested
that a SNEWS talk is definitely in order.
Next SNEWS Videocon
-------------------
Tentative date is November 17, 10 am EST.
See you then.
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