Present: J. Äystö , J. Billowes, P. Butler, A. Di Pietro, L. Fraile, M. Garcia-Borge, G. Huber, A. Jokinen, B. Jonson (chairman), M. Lindroos, K. Riisager

Excused: P. Dessagne, M. Huyse

The meeting starts at 09.00 h

1. Introductory remarks by the chairman

The chairman welcomed all to the meeting.

2. Approval of the minutes of the 40^th meeting.

The minutes are approved without any changes.

3. News from the AB Department (Mats Lindroos)

The AB department is making good progress with the REX integration. Most AB groups are now actively involved in REX maintenance and operation. The main remaining problems are the integration of beam instrumentation and technical support. The issue of technical support in general at ISOLDE will be discussed with the head of the AB department in the coming week, a solution is under way. The AB instrumentation group will get a project associate in 2005 that will work with the integration of REX instrumentation. Finally, Mats stressed that the ISOLDE operation team which now finally is up to full strength is committed to be more visible for the Users and that new operation routines aiming to improve user support is under discussion with the OP group.

Maria Garcia-Borge asked if it was not possible to return to the system with one EIC for each target. Mats replied that it is difficult to schedule the EIC like this and still respect staff rules and regulations. Björn Jonson proposed that a named EIC should be attached to each scheduled experiment as technical contact person. Mats promised to discuss this proposal with the OP group and report back to the next collaboration committee meeting.

4. RILIS (Mats Lindroos)

The RILIS system is today built around Russian made CV lasers that no longer can be maintained due to a failing supply of key spare parts. The collaboration committee has reserved funds in its budget to replace the CV lasers with modern solid state lasers. The collaboration chairman has in parallel been investigating the possibility to submit a Nordic grant application to fund the new RILIS lasers. This initiative has resulted in an interest from Professor Lars-Erik Berg’s atomic and molecular physics group in Stockholm at the Royal Institute of Technology to participate in the renovation of the RILIS. The group recently visited ISOLDE and has expresses interest to submit a grant application in Sweden for new lasers and for a participation in the RILIS work at CERN. The committee welcomes this initiative and encourages the concerned Swedish groups to go ahead with the proposal in 2005.

5. Schedule (Luis Fraile)
Luis Fraile reported on the good physics output from ISOLDE in 2004. He outlined the schedule for 2005. Several constrains have to be taken into account. The shorter cycling period of the PSB will be tested during a four week period with one week for setting up (no physics), two weeks of running for physics with a 900 ms cycling period and one week (without physics) to go back to the normal PSB cycling at 1.2 s. Furthermore, the REX controls for power supplies will be migrated to a new system during which REX not will be available for experiments. Luis welcomed the decision by the miniball steering committee to leave Miniball at ISOLDE for the full run in 2005. This will simplify scheduling and make it possible to fully profit from the higher proton intensity available form the booster.

6. INTC matters (Juha Äystö)

Juha Äystö reported that the 2005 run will give ISOLDE high visibility at CERN as we are the only facility running. This requires INTC to carefully consider how to best use the extra proton pulses and this issue will be discussed in detail at the closed session of the INTC meeting.

The INTC has been asked to organize a meeting for the future of the INTC physics program at CERN this autumn. A first meeting with INTC, ISOLDE and nTOF representatives will be held later in the week to discuss the organization of this workshop.

Juha also reported on the last research board at which the by INTC recommended proposals were approved. The INTC committee has three new members: Gerda Neyens, Belgium, Reiner Krücken from Germany, Sven Åberg from Sweden.

Next meetings of INTC:

May 23-24

October 31 – November 1

7. Collaboration finances (Peter Butler)

The ISOLDE collaboration spending is in full agreement with the budget for 2005 (see attached sheet). A worry is the spending for the ISOLDE extension but this issue is carefully being followed by the concerned ISOLDE and TS staff. Maria Borge asked about possible reserves for buying new lasers for the RILIS system. Peter answered that a provision has been made for this in the budget for the two coming years but that he sincerely hope that the Swedish grant application will be successful as this would considerably ease the strain on the collaboration and make it possible to invest in other urgent areas.

8. Status of EU related posts (Mats Lindroos and Peter Butler)

The AB department has recently hired a target and ion source physicist for the ATB-IF section. This person will work together with the staff that will be hired on EURISOL funds for target and ion source development. The AB department has advertised this post together with a post for the beta-beam part of EURISOL. The boards for the AB EURISOL posts will take place in spring 2005.

The PH department has opened two posts financed by the EURONS I3, one scientific administrative post and one post financed by the EURONS access program. Furthermore, a fellow has recently been hired for the three JRPs within EURONS (INTAG, CHARGE BREEDING and TRAPSPEC) that ISOLDE is involved in.  Furthermore, a staff post for the EURISOL beam preparation task and yield calculation task has been opened in the ISOLDE physics group. All posts have been advertised and boards will take place in spring 2005.

14. A.O.B.

- Peter Butler reported that the organizing committee of the MWATT workshop in May 2004 has taken the initiative for the forming of a group to give scientific input to the CERN management for the upgrade of the CERN proton injectors.

- Mats Lindroos and Peter Butler told the meeting that they are working on a project proposal for the upgrade of the ISOLDE facility. The proposal is called HIE-ISOLDE and has as main objectives to increase the energy of REX-ISOLDE, to improve the beam quality at ISOLDE and to adapt the target and target-handling to cope with the high intensity proton beam from the linac4-PSB machines.

- Alesia Di Pietro asked the in-house group if the information for new Users at ISOLDE on the web pages could be improved. She proposed adding an example for issues to consider and references to publications in which the experimental conditions at the facility are well described.

- The meeting recognized the good quality of ISOLDE web pages and noted that considerable time has to be spent to keep them up-to-date. Peter Butler asked all present to let him know if they find any faults or outdated information on the pages.

- Björn Jonson noted that the collaboration will have to appoint a new chairman this year as his mandate will come to end in 2005. He also explained that the ISOLDE physics group leader now is the appointed spokesperson of the collaboration at CERN. Furthermore, he proposed that the collaboration should meet in connection with the INTC meeting this autumn on the future of the INTC physics at CERN.

The meeting ends at 11:30h

Minutes by Mats Lindroos