Present: K. Blaum, P. Butler, L. Fraile, M. Garcia-Borge, A. Jokinen, M. Lindroos, D. Lunney, T. Nilsson, K. Riisager,
Excused: J. Billowes , M. Huyse, A. Di Pietro
Introductory remarks by the chairman
P. Butler stated that he had sent a letter on behalf of the Committee congratulating Prof. Heinz-Jürgen Kluge for having been awarded the 2006 Lise Meitner Prize.
Approval of minutes of the last meeting
The minutes from the last meeting were approved.
Technical developments and AB Department news
The technical coordinator, Mats Lindroos, gave a presentation on the status of the facility and the shutdown planning. The ISOLDE separator will run from 20 November to 10 of December off-line for separator courses and development work at REX (possibly RILIS). The REX has been running with good overall efficiency (10%) for the low energy stage in 2006 and the linac has for favourable A/Q reached a record energy of 3.15 MEV/u. The team have implemented slow extraction, successfully demonstrated charge breeding of heavy ions with total time in the low energy stage well below a second and made new beams available. The power and control group have analyzed the response time problems with the new ISOLDE controls and proposed a new solution with faster hardware and better optimized software which will be implemented in the shutdown. The RILIS team had a new record year. A new solid state laser which will replace the CV lasers will be ordered on the Wallenberg grant this spring (market survey has just been completed) and the off-line lab (the LARIS lab) is being equipped and first test run is planned for the summer 2007. The ISOLDE Target and ions source section has tested a negative ion source, built a dual transfer line target, tested new quartz and carbon transfer line prototypes and tested new target materials. The mini-move (moving of MINIBALL into the hall extension) and the RFQ cooler installation are making good progress. The first priority is to complete mini-move. The AB department will hold an Accelerators Technical and Operation Review for the experimental areas (including ISOLDE) in January 2007. The concerned group leaders will report on the outcome at the next suitable collaboration committee meeting.
Scheduling and PH Department news
The ISOLDE Physics Coordinator, Luis M Fraile, presented a compilation of the radioactive ion beams delivered by REX-ISOLDE on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the first radioactive beam post-accelerated at the facility. Forty-five radioactive species of 17 elements have been post-accelerated and used for physics experiments until now.
The last part of the ISOLDE Physics schedule for 2006 and the latest modifications of the accelerator schedule affecting ISOLDE were discussed. The planned offline activities at the end of the online period were also reported.
The draft accelerator schedule for 2007 was then presented. The PS Booster will start operations with beam on 10 April 2007. Protons will be delivered to ISOLDE on 16 April 2007, and Physics can start at ISOLDE as of 23 April. The stop of protons delivered to ISOLDE is planned for 12 November 2007, thus adding up to a total of 29 weeks for ISOLDE Physics. The MERIT experiment (nTOF-11) is scheduled from 3 to 17 July 2007. The n_TOF facility is planned to resume operations on 13 August 2007, subject to the completion of the target and agreement on resources.
The Physics group leader, Karsten Riisager, informed the collaboration committee that the work on moving mini-ball is making good progress. Joakim Cederkall is in charge of the move and first lay-out of the new experimental area is now available. The MINIBALL team has recently been joined by Jarno van de Walle from KU Leuven. The new fellow, Emanuel Clement, from CEA will also mainly focus on the MINIBALL experiments.
Furthermore, the physics group leader reported that the proposed new physics coordinator, Alexander Herlert, has been accepted after a selection board by the PH department. He also apologized to the German representative for a mistake with the mailing list which led to him not receiving some of the correspondence concerning the physics coordinator post. The list has now been checked and it works as it should. Finally, safety at CERN is being reorganized which will require the physics group to revisit safety procedures for the ISOLDE experiments.
Budget 2006+7
The ISOLDE physics group leader reported on the budget situation. The main question mark for 2007 is the REX posts. The contracts for the REX staff were being renewed and our understanding is that they will be charged to the CERN budget. The AB group leaders have made a request for material and consolidation budget for 2007 and forward for REX. The collaboration has agreed to finance a fellowship for Didier Voulot for one year starting 1 January 2007.
The plans for the solid state lab are making good progress; the lab will be built in the present location with an extension into a part of the ISOLDE mechanical workshop.
INTC matters
The INTC chairman reported from SPC, council and the last INTC meeting.The DG presented his white paper on CERN future programme to council in October. The slides can be accessed on the internal CERN web site. The HIE-ISOLDE project is part of the DG’s fourth theme for which the projects have to find half of the money outside CERN to get approved. Peter Butler and Mark Huyse encouraged each member state representative to contact their national delegate in council to get support for HIE-ISOLDE. It was also stressed that it is important to explain that there are two separate actions required for ISOLDE. The first action which has highest priority is the approval of the continued operation of the facility. The second action is support for the HIE-ISOLDE project proposal.
HIE-ISOLDE
Karsten Riisager, the upgrade group chairman, summarized the outcome of the last upgrade group meeting concerning HIE-ISOLDE. The group had a meeting 5th October to discuss the HIE-ISOLDE project. A staging of the project is proposed with the upgrade of the linac to 5.5 MeV/u together with the improvement of beam quality through the new RILIS/LARIS facilities and RFQ cooler having highest priority. Following the study done by the AB department the total budget for the full project is 34 MCHF distributed over 8 years. The cost for the high priority part (phase 1) is 13.5 MCHF with 3.8 MCHF already available from external contributors. Mats Lindroos reported that he has submitted an LOI for sputtered cavities which could be used at HIE-ISOLDE to ESGARD. The LOI has been accepted as a possible element (JRA?) within the ESGARD I3 proposal for the 7th FP on superconducting cavities. It is important to stress the collaboration with other intermediate facilities such as SPIRAL-II and SPES in all discussions of the proposal. The intermediate facilities aims towards EURISOL and HIE-ISOLDE will in particular explore charge breeding and linear accelerator aspects of EURISOL.
New MoU
The physics group leader has over the last half year worked with David Jacobs in the CERN management on a new MoU for ISOLDE. The first complete draft was sent to the member state representatives before the meeting. Various aspects of the MOU were discussed at the meeting. Among the more important points was the time of validity of MoU and the fact that a single GLIMOS will be appointed for all experiments.
ISOLDE workshop / School in nuclear theory
Kasrten Riisager told the meeting that the dates for the next ISOLDE Workshop are 12 to 14 February 2007. The first meeting of the INTC in 2007 will be held on 15 and 16 February.
There are several proposals for the dates of the first ISOLDE school in nuclear theory; the most likely option is decoupling it from other ISOLDE related meetings and moving it to May. The ISCC will be informed once the dates are agreed. There are other offers by Rick Casten and Kris Heyde to give theory lectures in other periods of the year.
Fellowship applications
Emmanuel Clement has joined the ISOLDE Physics group with a CERN fellowship on 1 November 2006. The two other fellows in the group, Henrik Jeppesen and Alexander Herlert, will finish their contracts on 30 April and 30 September 2007 respectively. Therefore applications by good candidates for next selection round (application deadline 7 March 2007, selection committee meeting of 31 May 2007) are strongly encouraged.
Magdalena Kowalska will join the ISOLDE Physics group as a Marie Curie Intra-European individual fellow.
Hanna Frånberg will join AB/OP/IS as CERN fellow from 1 January 2007, partially funded by the INTAG Joint Research Activity within the EURONS project. Didier Voulot will join AB/RF/LR as fellow from 1 January 2007, funded by the ISOLDE collaboration.
A.O.B.
October 2007 will mark the 40 years of operation of ISOLDE. PH/IS suggested to hold a scientific meeting in the autumn celebrating this milestone. P. Butler proposed that this meeting should be incorporated with the presentation of the scientific case for the HIE-ISOLDE proposal. The ISCC agreed to this idea.
The date of next meeting of the ISCC was fixed to 15 February 2006 in the morning.
Minutes by Mats Lindroos and Luis Fraile