Present: J. Billowes, Y. Blumenfeld, P. Butler, R. Catherall, J. Cederkall, L. Fraile, M.J. Garcia-Borge (Chairperson), A. Herlert (also representing K. Blaum), A. Jokinen,  S. Siem, N. Marginean (representing V. Zamfir), Y. Kadi, K. Riisager, P. Van Duppen

Invited: B. Jonson (for point 7), R. Losito (P.T.)

Excused: K. Blaum, A. Di Pietro, S. Franchoo, V. Zamfir

The meeting starts at 09.00 h

1. Introductory remarks by the chairperson

The chairperson opens the meeting and announces that A. Di Pietro and S. Franchoo are excused from the meeting while K. Blaum will be represented by A. Herlert.

2. Approval of the minutes of the 55th meeting.

The minutes of the 55th ISCC meeting are approved and the committee agrees that, from now on, the minutes of the previous meeting should also be sent out with the meeting agenda.

3. Technical developments and BE & EN Department news (R. Catherall) (see overheads)

R. Catherall presented a detailed summary of ISOLDE operations throughout 2009. There have been certain problems like that of the HRS robot failing to pick up the target properly and another robot incident at the GPS but these have already been solved or will be solved during the shutdown period. Overall it has been a successful year for physics at ISOLDE.

The committee is told that two issues have changed the  approach to safety at ISOLDE:

• The Internal Safety Audit: this was requested by CERN management and has produced a report with recommendations that will be implemented by the operations group and the coordinator.
• The failure of the HRS robot to correctly retrieve a used target: new procedures which require a number of days including the prior meeting of a (ALARA) safety committee mean that there will be  no more ”quick” interventions in the target area. This may have a knock-on effect for operations at ISOLDE as most interventions are not planned.

R. Catherall goes on to summarize the shutdown planning for 2009/2010 which includes the replacement of the HRS Front-end 3 by the Front-end 6 and the renovation of the vacuum system controls.

News from the support groups is then summarized:

• BE-OP: D. Voulot will be employed under alimited duration (5 year) CERN contract from 1st January 2010.
• PH-SME: J. Thiboud has been employedsince 1st September 2009 as a technician for WITCH and REX for a period of 2 years, funded 50% by K.U. Leuven and 50% by the collaboration.
• SC-RP: A supplementary RP technician will be available during the shutdown period.
• EN-STI: Two fellows have been successfully negotiated in collaboration with ESS, Lund to work on the target area up-grade and the liquid metal loop project.  There will be posts opening for a Safety Engineer within EN-STI-RBS and a Laser Physicist within EN-STI-LP.  A technical student will start working on the ISOLDE safety file from mid-November 2009. There has been approval of 3.5MCHF for the target upgrade project starting in 2010 and there has been an increase in general consolidation to 250kCHF for 2010.

A discussion takes place about  prodedures at ISOLDE and the reliability of certain equipment because a number of problems were encountered by users this year. It is decided that physicists should be asked to provide a report to the ISOLDE Scientific coordinator as soon as they have completed a physics run and this information will be constructively presented to the ISOLDE technical support team  so that a direct follow up to problems can be made.

A. Herlert informs the committee that a new PhD student within the Wolfgang-Gentner-Stipend program, S. Rothe, has started work at RILIS.

4. Scheduling and PH Department news (A. Herlert / Y. Blumenfeld) (see overheads)

A. Herlert tells the committee that at this years February INTC meeting ten new experiments were approved and at the May meeting another one experiment was approved and awarded 21 RIB shifts. In 2009, 51 out of the 72 experiments with shifts remaining requested a total of 627 shifts with 96 different beams. The 2009 schedule allowed for 437 shifts for 39 of these experiments with a total of 62 different beams.  Out of the 273 shifts requested for REX-ISOLDE, 140 were scheduled for 9 experiments.

The main problems encountered this year are then summarized by A. Herlert who then concludes that it was a good year at ISOLDE with good physics results.

The accelerator schedule for 2010 is then announced to the committee. Protons from the PSB will be available from 12^th April and physics will start at ISOLDE on 29^th April. Protons will stop on 22^nd November giving 29.5 weeks of physics. This years shutdown will be longer than previous years due to the installation of the new HRS front-end and the new vacuum control system.

A. Herlert goes on to summarize the status of certain experimental set-ups in the ISOLDE hall and the reallocation of floor space:

• CRIS: Installation of the new CRIS set-up is on-going and this experiment is being used as a prototype for the new safety structure. CRIS should be ready for off-line beam next summer and should have its first on-line run in October 2010.
• ECR: In August 2009, the ECR was removed from HLM and parts have been shipped to Grenoble and GANIL. Some of the equipment belongs to ISOLDE and is available for use by other ISOLDE users and experiments. It was immediately replaced by the on-line emission channeling set-up.
• Beta-NMR: Two PhD students are now working on this and the set-up is progressing well. A web-page is now available.
• MISTRAL: Clean-up has started and the RFQ buncher and cooler have been shipped to Mainz. The difficult removal of the 22t magnet should occur at the beginning of 2010.
• WITCH: The new shielding to prevent the influence of the WITCH magnetic field on the HCI beam steering has been installed. However, it does not seem to be enough to solve the problem completely. WITCH now has one and a half permanent crew members, post-doc M. Breitenfeldt and technician J. Thiboud, and a commissioning run took place in week 47.
  A discussion is held about whether or not it would be possible to move WITCH in order to reduce its interference with other set-ups. This seems very difficult and expensive.
• HV Platform: K. Johnston is looking into what is required for the HV platform renovation.
  The committee decides that a project should be set up to consider what the HV platform will be used for, what work needs to be done, what is the best position for it and who owns the set-up. It should also consider who will use the set-up and if they are willing to contribute financially. It is decided to invite K. Johnston to the next ISCC meeting to discuss this matter.
• GLM: This is heavily used by the solid-state community; a new set-up will be installed during the shutdown along with improved shielding.
• ASPIC: The future of ASPIC is still under discussion. HMI Berlin would like to hand the set-up over to any ISOLDE user interested without any additional funds while K. Potzger from Dresden has expressed an interest in reviving the ASPIC research program for which he is applying for German BMBF funds.
  The committee recalls that the collaboration does not take responsibility for experimental set-ups and so cannot take over the ASPIC set-up in it’s present state. It advises that a collaboration within the solid state community should be created to run ASPIC. If there is a physics case for experiments at ASPIC then the ISOLDE Collaboration is willing to assist according to the general procedure applied to all experiments at ISOLDE. If nothing is done in the next 6 months then ASPIC will have to be removed.

Y. Blumenfeld then summarises news from the ISOLDE Physics group:

• A workshop was held by the German solid state community at which it was decided to re-apply for BMBF funds in particular to pay for the ISOLDE solid state coordinator position.
• HIE-ISOLDE has been fully endorsed by the CERN research board. The full text of the endorsement is distributed to the committee members.
• The contracts of the two fellows at ISOLDE, M. Kowalska and J. Van De Walle, will expire at the end of December 2009. M. Kowalska will remain at ISOLDE with a contract from MPI-Heidelberg and a subsistence allowance will be paid to her by the collaboration. J. Van de Walle will be moving to KVI in the Netherlands. Hence there are openings for fellows at ISOLDE and for the next fellows selection board, which will be held on 17.11.09, CERN has received 9 applications for ISOLDE including 4 with A ratings. News since the meeting: Deyan Yordanov will be offered a 2 year fellowship starting 1^st January 2010. Andrea Knecht will also be offered a 2 year fellowship starting 1^st January 2010 and will share his time between ISOLDE (WITCH experiment) and AD.
• There are presently 2 PhD students at ISOLDE, H. Tornqvist and G. Tveten, who has returned from maternity leave. G. Tveten’s contract will run out at the end of September next year so there will be an opening for a PhD student from October 2010. G. Georgiev’s student C. Sotty is now at CERN to work on the Beta-NMR project and the collaboration will pay him a subsistence allowance for a total of 18 months.
• CERN Limited Duration (LD) contract policy has changed. From now on, LD contracts can be for a maximum of 5 years with no possibility of extension. LD contract holders (after their probation period) can apply for any Indefinite Contract opening and as many times as they wish.
• In February 2010 CERN will be holding a workshop on Medical Physics. Ulli Koester is a member of the organising committee.

5. News on replacement of ISOLDE coordinator (Y. Blumenfeld)
The committee is informed that, since A. Herlert’s contract will finish at the end of September 2010, there will be a 3-year CERN post available for the next ISOLDE Scientific Coordinator from this date. This post is open for applications until 26^th November 2009.

It is agreed that if the CERN board is specifically for this post then, depending on the suitability of the candidates, the committee could recommend 2 candidates for the post. However, if the composition of the board is unknown then the committee would choose the one and only candidate to be recommended to CERN Human resources. The ISCC will discuss the candidates at the meeting on 4^th February 2010.

The committee also decides that if the successful candidate is external then the collaboration will fund an overlap of 2 months with the end of A. Herlert’s contract to allow for a smooth handover.

6. New ISOLDE website (A. Herlert)

A. Herlert informs the committee that the new ISOLDE website can be accessed via http://isolde.web.cern.ch/ISOLDE/isoldenewweb and that input from ISCC members is welcome. He thanks A. Taureg (August 2009,”enfants de fonctionnairs” program at CERN) who spent a month transferring the content of the web site files. The committee is told that the IT security issues for the new website have been checked but many files still need to be updated and new pages created.

7. General Interest brochure on ISOLDE and ISOLDE in Scholarpedia (B. Jonson)

B. Jonson presents the draft version of the ISOLDE brochure and the committee thanks F. Marcastel for her help with the layout. B. Jonson requests that any comments should be sent to him as soon as possible and then the final version will be sent to the ISCC members for approval.

It is suggested by M.G.Borge that condensed matter physics and bio-physics should be given equal status compared to other subjects and the HIE-ISOLDE should be given more emphasis. P. Van Duppen suggests that both the ISOLDE and HIE-ISOLDE logos should appear on the brochure.

The committee chairperson requests that country’s ISCC representative should nominate someone to be responsible for making a translated version of the brochure.

B. Jonson informs the committee that K. Riisager and himself are working on information about ISOLDE that will appear in Scholarpedia which is a refereed on-line encyclopedia.

8. Budget 2009 and projection for 2010 (Y. Blumenfeld)

The committee is told  by Y. Blumenfeld that the ISOLDE collaboration account is in a healthy state and that all countries have paid the fee for the period 2009/2010 except for Finland, Norway, Romania and France. 

9. M.O.U. issues - new members (Y. Blumenfeld)

The situation of MoU negotiations is summarized by Y. Blumenfeld:

• Norway: Norway has been paying the collaboration fee for the last 2 years but has not yet signed the MoU. S. Siem tells the committee that she does not know what is causing the delay but is sure that the document will be signed.
• Portugal: The papers have been prepared but have not yet been signed even though the Portuguese government ministers have not changed after the country’s general election.
• Greece: S. Harissopulos has informed the collaboration that Greece would like to join on an introductory arrangement paying 30kCHF a year for the first 3 years but the MoU has not yet been signed.
• Ireland: Ireland is considering joining the collaboration on a scaled fee basis.

10. News about collaboration agreements (Y. Blumenfeld)

Y. Blumenfeld informs the committee that a collaboration agreement with India was signed at a ceremony in June, while Korea is about to sign an agreement which will allow the transfer of LINAC technology to Korea in exchange for equipment for HIE-ISOLDE.

While the agreement with SPES, Italy is being signed, progress of negotiations for an agreement with GANIL are slow. There are also possibilities for agreements to be signed with SPIRAL2, TRIUMF and Oakridge.

11. HIE-ISOLDE (Y. Kadi) (see overheads)

Y. Kadi presents the the status of the HIE-ISOLDE project to the committee. He summarises the HIE-ISOLDE proposal and makes an overview of the project breakdown structure. He then reviews the present HIE-ISOLDE schedule and gives the following important milestone:

• Project starts 1^st January 2010
• Cryogenics building ready December 2011
• Installation of infrastructures complete December 2012
• High energy beam line (5.5MeV/u) installed March 2013
• Cryogenics installed and completed June 2013
• Full Linac (10MeV/u) installed January 2014
• Commissioning completed by June 2014 inline with L4 and PSB commissioning (October 2013 to July 2014)

The committee is told that a detailed schedule taking into account available resources will be prepared soon.

Y. Kadi goes on to summarise the current cost estimate of the HIE-ISOLDE project and tells the committee that the current cost of HIE-ISOLDE 1 is 36 MCHF materials and 124 FTE (71 staff + 53 Fellows/PhD students). He informs the committee that the collaboration will have to find more funds for 2011/2012.

The status of external funding for the project is then reviewed:

• Of the funds (4.3MCHF + 4FTE) from K.U. Leuven, Belgium, 1MCHF and 2FTE has already been spent on R&D activity.
• The ISOLDE collaboration will provide a total  of 1.5MCHF
• Beam quality investments such as the new RILIS and RFQ cooler are being funded by Sweden and 4MCHF has already been spent.
• Other opportunities such as the Scandinavian Interregional Package and the KoRIA project are being explored.
• Spain is funding 2FTE under the CPAN project (the call CPAN09-TS13 is out under http://www.i-cpan.es/doc/2009-11-11-ConvocatoriaContratos_en.pdf)and a further 2FTE via a special CERN-Spain technical training program.
• A request is being made for 23 fellows for 3 years from the Marie-Curie Fellowships program within ITN3.

Y. Blumenfeld suggests that all ISCC members explore other funding possibilities in their own countries.

The committee is then told by Y. Kadi about the progress of R&D activity on the HIE-LINAC. He goes on to present the progress on the layout design for the HIE-ISOLDE facility.

Y. Kadi ends by summarising the status of the HIE-ISOLDE project and concludes that the R&D for the project is in good shape and on-going. He thanks everyone involved in the project.

P. Van Duppen suggests that there may be the possibility of links with the Netherlands for beam diagnostics once J. Van de Walle has moved to KVI.

The committee agrees to fund a total of 2 fellow positions for the HIE-ISOLDE project, i.e. one fellow for cryomodule design, half a fellow for cavity tests and half a fellow for RP safety.   

12. INTC matters (P. Butler)
P. Butler informs the committee that 5 activity status reports were presented at the CERN Research board in June and that he has been asked by the director general to give a presentation about the international context of the ISOLDE program.

He announces that the INTC meeting in June 2010 will be dedicated to presentations of letters of intent for experiments using HIE-ISOLDE.

The dates of the INTC meetings during 2010 are: 4-5 February, 23-24 June and 4-5 November.

13. A.O.B

• The ISCC meetings during 2010 will be held at CERN on Thursday 4^th February, Wednesday 23^rd June and Thursday 4^th November at 09:00.

The meeting ends at 13:30.