Minutes from REX meeting 2004-10-13

 

Present: Pierre Delahaye, Mats Lindroos (chair), Richard Scrivens, Thomas Sieber, Peter Butler, Romain Savreux, Fredrik Wenander

 

 

 

General issues

 

* The minutes from the last meeting were approved.

 

* Mats is about to create an email list for the people involved in REX.

 

* An updated budget with spending so far 2004 was presented. Approximately 5 kCHF out of 170 kCHF have yet not been used or reserved. It remains to determine what belongs to consolidation and to operation/maintenance.  

 

* The ISOLDE server will be changed today Wednesday at 18:00. As REX is standby no major problems are expected.

 

* For the 9,11Li run the buffer gases from the REXTRAP may cause contamination problems. We have the possibility to change between Ne and Ar buffer gas. Alternatively we use installed stripper foils after the Linac to move the charge state distribution of the contamination away from the 9,11Li.

 

* The first draft for REX budget 2005 was discussed internally between Pierre, Thomas and Fredrik. Priorities were agreed on and Thomas will update the budget once again. Still lacking input from the beam diagnostics group. Sophie Meunier should also be given the opportunity to add items for REX. A few expenses that could be paid by the physics group account should be identified. The contribution from Munich for 2005 should be investigated.

 

* After a long delay the repair of the three roughing pumps have commenced. One is non-repairable, while spare parts are ordered for the other two. The total cost is estimated to 1 kCHF.

 

 

Control system

 

* Mats will discuss with Franck di Maio about the involvement of Nikolai Trofimov in the daily maintenance of the present control system.

 

* Thomas Sieber (high energy) and Fredrik Wenander (low energy) will both be contact persons to Nikolai Trofimov for the control system issues.

 

* Ivan Deloose re-installed the operative system for the beam diagnostics FEC Tuesday evening. Some problems were encountered, probably caused by the software.

 

 

 

REXTRAP and REXEBIS

 

* Beam from GPS has been delivered to Witch via the REXTRAP since Saturday evening after the Mg run with Miniball was finished. Stable 138Ba and radioactive 122In. The radiation level was quite high at the trap exit, 300 uS/h.

 

* 7Li beam from the GPS target has also been taken to setup the low energy part of REX. A trap efficiency of 38% is reached, while the EBIS efficiency is only 4-5% (20-30% expected). The light mass may cause problems for the timing of the ramped potentials. To be investigated on Thursday/Friday.

* A shorter cooling time of 10 ms may be tried for the Li run, or we trigger the trap to the proton pulses to maximize the throughput of the short lived Li isotopes.

 

* The contamination on A/q=3.6666, the mass-to-charge ratio to be used for the acceleration of 11Li3+, diminishes to sub-pA within minutes when the Ne gas inlet to the trap is stopped. If we have time the cooling of K+ using Ar will be tried on Thursday/Friday.

 

* The GPS target is cooled down Wednesday evening.

 

* Romain Savreux is progressing well with the new control system for REXTRAP. Some off-line tests are scheduled for November.

 

* One of the turbo pumps in the REX mass separator stopped again last Saturday morning during the Mg run. That means, the unexplainable stops still remain. David Porret has been contacted.

 

 

LINAC

 

* The Linac has been setup for A/q=3.6666 and 4. A very nice beam spot of 3-4 mm diameter at the target was obtained. An energy between 2.8 and 2.95 MeV/u will be attainable for the Li run. A stripper foil is also installed in the beam diagnostics box before the bending magnet as mentioned above.

 

* The diagnostics box in the 2nd beam line is repaired. A couple of hours EBIS beam is needed on Thursday/Friday to check the MCP.

 

* The cost (25 kCHF) for the spare buncher amplifier that was ordered 2003 has been split between the collaboration account and the physics group account.

 

* Peter B inquired about the progress of with the ISTC proposal fro the energy upgrade. Input from the physics community regarding the energy steps and range is needed. Mats will reestablish the contact with the Russian contact person to move the project forward.

 

 

Minutes taken by Fredrik Wenander