Subject: Videocon minutes, February 14, 2000
From: Kate Scholberg (schol@budoe.bu.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 14 2000 - 15:49:22 EST
SNEWS Video Meeting Minutes, February 14, 2000
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-- News from experiments:
* Super-K (Mark V.) reports that another threshold-lowering is planned,
for March-April. He hopes to implement the "express-line"
at that time, to reduce the delay with which Super-K alarms are reported.
* MACRO's main news (from Alec) is that although partial decommissioning will
happen on May 1 (some trigger electronics and waveforms will be removed),
data taking for stellar collapse will continue until the end of the year.
* Everything stable for LVD (Pietro).
* SNO (Art) just finished some substantial optical calibrations at the
beginning of February, and steady running has restarted. The supernova alert
is now being expanded beyond the small group of experts, and now includes the
detector operators.
* OMNIS (Alex M.) should hear on the status of their DOE funding proposal
soon.
-- Alec reported on the AAS meeting, which was very successful: he gave a
SNEWS talk, Clarence Virtue gave a timing talk and Leif Robinson gave an
amateur astronomer talk at the "Next Galactic Supernova" parallel session.
Experiment spokespeople gave plenary talks. See Alec's his longer report in
the mailing list archives.
-- We discussed the DOE proposal draft that I circulated yesterday,
and there were a number of good comments.
* Mark pointed out that we need to justify the 10 microsecond requirement;
the main argument for trying to do better than milliseconds is that we don't
really know what might be in the signal that might require good timing;
also, it's not much more expensive to get 10e-12 frequency stability than
10e-9, so we might as well go with the best we can.
* LVD and SNO people are willing to help with SNEWS shifts.
* Pietro suggested that we could include a mention that LVD will submit an
independent proposal for INFN/LNGS funds for a duplicate timing calibration
system. According to Rob Douglas (which I heard after the meeting), the same
may be true for NRC.
* As for the issue of what sort of communication devices and/or computers we
want: most people already have laptops and LVD people have their own
equipment; the same equipment can be used for SNEWS shift. SNO people are
going to have a meeting tomorrow to discuss what sort of thing they think is
appropriate.
* Pietro pointed out that LNGS now has a GPS, and not just a standalone
atomic clock (he'll try to find some documentation on the system).
* As for the author list on the proposal: since some people (e.g. LVD
members) may not want to be directly included on a DOE request for funding
(which could cause problems for their own funding agencies), it's probably
better not to include everyone directly. However it would be fine to include
a separate list of SNEWS collaborators which can include everyone in the
working group who wishes to be on the list.
-- Art suggested that the advisory board needs to get together for a phone
conference sometime soon, to make decisions on various issues, most of which
have already been discussed at the videocons. They need an agenda which
should include such issues as: what's needed before deciding on an automated
alert (e.g. security checks), schedule for implementation, downtime
coordination, privacy agreements, etc. I'll prepare something on a short
timescale.
-- Leif Robinson from Sky&Telescope, who joined us at BU, discussed the
AstroAlert service set up by them: check out
http://www.skypub.com/news/astroalert/astroalert.html
There are now some 2000
subscribers on the supernova neutrino list.
Leif also described his plan to send out a (tagged) test alert to subscribers
based on a predicted nova event, some time in the next month.
-- Also on the astronomical alert side: Bob Svoboda from LSU (who unfortunately
couldn't join this time) is interested in getting the LSU observatory
involved. He proposes that we write an NSF proposal, which may be able to
focus on educational outreach. Mark will also look into the Rotse/Fenton
Hill ideas.
-- Tentative date for the next meeting: March 13.
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