Present: J. Billowes, R. Catherall, J. Cederkall (replacing T. Nilsson), S. Franchoo, M. Garcia-Borge (acting chairperson), A. Herlert (replacing K. Blaum), M. Huyse, A. Jokinen, M. Lindroos, K. Riisager, V. Zamfir

Excused: K. Blaum, P. Butler (chairman), A. Di Pietro , T. Nilsson, S. Siem

The meeting starts at 09.00 h

1. Introductory remarks by the chairperson

The meeting is opened by the acting chairperson, M. Garcia-Borge, who welcomes V. Zamfir, the representative of the new member country Romania to the meeting. The chairperson then goes on to welcome J. Cederkall and A. Herlert who represent Sweden and Germany respectively at this meeting of the ISCC. Excuses from P. Butler, A. Di Pietro and S. Siem are passed on to the committee.

2. Approval of the minutes of the 50th meeting.

The minutes of the 50^th ISCC meeting are approved.

3. Technical developments and AB Department news (M. Lindroos) (see overheads)

M. Lindroos summarises the shutdown work already completed and that still in progress.

As well as discussing the general maintenance of the facility he mentions the following

points:

• A survey is taking place of the new layout at ISOLDE. The drawings will be available on the CERN database in preparation for HIE-ISOLDE.
• A target cooling water distribution panel has been installed.
• Ventilation measurements made during the shutdown have located a number of leaks which could be the cause of the ventilation problem. Possible solutions are being studied.
• In the very near future a new radioactive waste management system will have to be introduced to cope with the actinide targets produced at ISOLDE. As about 30 targets a year have to be dealt with either a proper storage and disposal facilty will have to be constructed costing about 1.9 million swiss francs or the used targets given to a private company to dispose of which will cost about 10k swiss francs per target.
• A new alignment system is being setup in the target zone.
• A twin of REX-EBIS which is installed at the MSL Laboratory in Stockholm is to be decommissioned. Since the Wallenberg grant for REX-ISOLDE originally paid for this EBIS, negociations are underway to bring it to ISOLDE to be used as spare parts.
• The Wallenberg grant has been used to buy the new solid state laser from the German company EdgeWave GmbH. It is due to be delivered in february and will have a 2 year warranty. A spare laser head and power supply will also be built by EdgeWare which can be shipped to CERN within 24 hours if required. The new solid state lasers will be installed along side the existing copper vapour lasers which can then be used as backup.

M. Lindroos goes on to discuss projects such as the LARIS laboratory, RIMS spectroscopy

and liquid metal target simulations. He concludes by presenting the new HIE-ISOLDE logo.

4. Scheduling and PH Department news (A. Herlert / K. Riisager) (see overheads)

K. Riisager presents the news from the PH Department:

• CERN has accepted the nomination of Y. Blumenfeld as the new ISOLDE Physics group leader. His contract will start on 01.08.2008 .
• Good candidates are required for the next round of Fellows and Associates applications. The deadlines for Fellowships and Associate positions are March 5^th and March 11^th respectively.
• A new technical student will start working with A. Herlert from 1^st March 2008.
• Any input for the next ISOLDE newsletter should be submitted as soon as possible.
• Professors K. Heyde (end February) and R. Casten (mid-July to mid-August) will both be making long term visits to ISOLDE during 2008.
• Any interest in a possible housing project in Archamps, with apartments reserved for CERN users, should be communicated to the Physics group leader before the end of February 2008.
• N. Severijns is willing to fund 50% of a technician post in the PH Department for general ISOLDE work. He would like to know if anyone is interested in taking on the other 50% of the post.
• The HIE-ISOLDE physics report is ready to be distributed.
• Changes have been made by the RP department to the radiation/safety courses which are necessary to get access to ISOLDE. The general standard safety course is still required along with a half day course which must be booked in advance and completed before new users can be issued with a filmbadge. In the future there will also be an extra course required specifically for ISOLDE but this will, hopefully, be web-based.

A. Herlert summarises the ISOLDE schedule and beam time for 2007 when 29.5 weeks of physics took place and 377.5 RIB shifts were delivered. The shift distribution for 2007 showed the continuation of the interesting Biology/Medicine experiments as well as the reduction of the solid state physics percentage. The average number of shifts provided per day during 2007 is shown to be on the same level as previous years.

A. Herlert goes on to discuss the use of key resources during 2007:

• Targets: 24 targets were used , 20 of which were new. The majority are UC  targets so the used target storage problem must soon be solved.
• RILIS: a total of 154.5  shifts were provided which corresponded to 1763 hours of online work.

The performance of REX-ISOLDE during 2007 is then presented. Even though the start-up was delayed due to the move of MINIBALL, 88.5 shifts were delivered to experiments. A number of new radioactive beams were successfully provided and a new record for heavy masses was achieved (²³⁸U⁵⁶⁺ was accelerated and ^184,186,188Hg was accelerated to 2.8MeV/u).

The committee is told that REX-ISOLDE training took place for machine supervisors in 2007 so a larger number of people now have some knowledge about how to run the facility.

A. Herlert then summarises the accelerator schedule for 2008: ISOLDE should receive protons from the PSB from May 5^th and physics should start on May 7^th. The protons will stop on November 12^th making a total of 27 weeks available for physics. The start-up will be delayed compared with previous years due to LHC preparation and, for the same reason, several long periods of MD without protons being available to ISOLDE are likely during 2008.

A. Herlert concludes by discussing the ISOLDE schedule/operation for 2008. This includes the limits of key resources, ISCOOL operation and the new solid state lab which will be ready for operation in 2008.

5. Budget 2007 and 2008(K. Riisager)

K. Riisager summarises the collaboration income and expenditure for 2007: Most of the expenditure for the solid state laboratory has now been made and the cost of REX personnel has now been transferred to the AB Department except for D. Voulet’s fellowship and part of N. Trofimov’s salary.  A change in the way liquid Nitrogen is ordered has resulted in a saving of 50%. Extra funds to be targeted at ISCOOL have been received from Mainz.

The budget situation for 2008 is presented. He explains that an extra contribution will be received from Denmark for the upgrade of the target areas and that the account balance is looking very healthy ready for the  peak of required HIE-ISOLDE investment expected during 2009/2010.

M. Lindroos informs the committee that chairman P. Butler has had a meeting with the AB department leader S. Myers about the future of D. Voulot at ISOLDE. Even though the role of D. Voulot is seen as crucial at ISOLDE S. Myers cannot see any possibility of being able to integrate a 5^th REX-post into the AB Dept. He has suggested that the ISCC send a letter to J. Engelen, CERN Chief Scientific Officer, stating the situation and the contribution that D. Voulot makes to REX-ISOLDE. K. Riisager explains that it would be possible for the collaboration to make some funds available to aid the situation of D. Voulot.

The budget of the EURONS funds is presented and K. Riisager discusses how the collaboration budget would be effected if no European funding were received when EURONS finishes at the end of 2008.

6. MoU and (potential) new members (K. Riisager)

The committee discuss the updates required to the annexes of the MoU and is asked to communicate any changes to be made. Norway and Romania will be added to the MoU as new members of the collaboration.

A discussion follows about the yearly ISOLDE Collaboration fee and it is decided to keep it at 60kCHF for the moment.

The committee is told that, since the last meeting, there has been no further contact regarding the possibility of Greece joining the collaboration but Portugal has submitted a funding application to allow it to become a member and the decision should be made later in 2008.

7. HIE-ISOLDE (M. Lindroos)

M. Lindroos informs the committee that CERN is in the process of deciding on the implementation of the white paper which includes the HIE-ISOLDE project. At present the Director General can see a positive future for HIE-ISOLDE if 50% of the necessary funding can be found externally. It is estimated that 14 million Swiss francs is required for the first phase of the project, of which 5 million has already been raised by Leuven and the Swedish Wallenberg grant. The Leuven group has given 1 million Swiss francs towards funding the HIE-Linac R&D project; M. Pasini is doing an excellent job on the technical design study of the superconducting linac.

M. Huyse announces that in mid-March 2008 a decision should be made on the regular funding for HIE-ISOLDE from Belgium. Also, a new staff position has been created at K.U. Leuven which could attract more funding.

The committee is told by M. Lindroos that the UK is still looking for funding towards HIE-ISOLDE but, due to the reorganisation  of the funding agency’s budgets, they are still waiting for decisions to be made. Discussions about possible funding are still in progress with colleagues in the USA such as B. Tribble at Texas A&M, J. Nolen at Argonne and G. Bollen at MSU.

M. Lindroos then lists the different HIE-ISOLDE work packages that have been set up as well as the people responsible for them.

8. INTC matters (M. Huyse)

M. Huyse informs the committee that there are four new members of the INTC: J. Billowes, R. Julin, C. Scheidenberger and P-H. Heenen. At the meeting of 11-12 February 2008  twelve proposals, one status report and three letters of intent will be presented.

9. Reallocation of space for experiments (A. Herlert/K. Riisager)

A. Herlert presents the actual situation in the ISOLDE hall and discusses the possible changes in the location of certain set-ups.

• Tests are being run to find out if shielding can be built around WITCH to stop it interfering with the linac beam.
• Complis is to be removed but already possible proposals are being discussed for experiments that could use the space that would be made available.
• MISTRAL has not taken beam for a long time but it is up to the INTC to decide its future.
• The position of the ECR limits some possibilities for solid state experiments. A solution would therefore be to relocate it.
• The German groups responsible for ASPIC no longer wish to use it but would prefer not to have to return it to Germany for decommissioning. They are, therefore, trying to identify people, possibly from solid state or surface physics, who would be willing to take over the equipment.  If, however, ASPIC were removed this would free up space suitable for the ECR.

10. A.O.B.

• K. Riisager informs the committee that the joint conference with GANIL will now be held at the beginning of June 2008 at Giens on the Cote d’Azur. The committee agrees that some funds could be made available to support students and young researchers at this conference as long as the intended use of these funds can be assured.
• The committee decides that paper copies of the ISCC meeting minutes and presentations should no longer be sent to ISCC members.
• M. Huyse announces that there will be a workshop on ISOL systems in Belgium in April 2008. The aim of the workshop will be to discuss the possible need for a facility which can provide a stable beam for long periods.
• The committee congratulates J. Aysto on his appointment to the SPC.
• M. Lindroos announces that the minutes of HIE-ISOLDE meetings will soon be available on the web.
• The committee is informed by M. Lindroos that VIPs from South Korea will visit ISOLDE on 13^th February 2008.
• M. Garcia-Borge reports on the EURISOL User group meeting which was held in January 2008. The meeting discussed how to go forward with EURISOL and had decided to elect representatives from participating countries who will get together to push forward the physics case for the project. M. Lindroos informs the committee that a letter of intent for the continuation of EURISOL is being prepared for NUPNET.
• M. Lindroos tells the committee that the OECD ( Organistaion for Economic Co-operation and Development) report will be available in March 2008. It will be discussed at the next SPC meeting and will aim at making Nuclear Physics a global rather than a regional science.
• The next ISCC meeting will be held at CERN on Monday 19^th May 2008 at 09:00.

The meeting ends at 12:30h