1. Technical news:

· A request to increase manpower in the RF group with more specialists will be presented to the IEFC (Injectors and Experimental Facilities Committee). This aims at countering the loss of two positions in the beginning of the year and consequently increasing the chances of REX-ISOLDE for technical support during weekends and holidays in the running period.

· The vacuum seal of the 9-gap has been tested successfully at high power.

· New mechanics for tuning the 7-gap has been installed.

· The heat exchangers for the REX RF amplifiers have been replaced and tested.

· The shielding of REX has been tested with satisfactory results. Some specific areas still need an improvement.

· New diagnostics boxes have been installed to aid the operation of REX.

· Vacuum problems have occurred with REX-EBIS. Investigation is ongoing.

· Phase 6 of the FE6 installation is ongoing. The work on interlocks, gas line, cabling, etc. needs to be finished before next week when the vacuum group will take over tor further tests.

· PC, cameras and other facilities have been installed locally for better controlling of the robots in the target area.

· The date for enlarging the wall opening for the removal of the MISTRAL magnet will be announced soon.

· The crane is no longer occupied by the technicians working on the smoke-detection system.

· Work is planned near the RILIS cabin to improve the radiation shielding (water panel).

· In the future the energy of the PSB may be increased to 2GeV for better LHC operation. This could have some positive or negative impact on the ISOLDE yields in different areas of the nuclear chart. This is still a very preliminary idea - no need to panic yet!

· Due to the operation of other experiments this year the protons delivered to ISOLDE will be reduced with respect to our request down to 34% (less than 2mA of protons on average). This is the same situation as last year.

2. A.O.B.

· The ENSAR (European Nuclear Science and Applications Research) project has received a good grade on the evaluation (14/15). It seems likely that it will be recommended for funding.

· Prof. Morten Hjorth-Jensen (Oslo University) presented “Tensor force in nuclei”. This was the last of a sequence of lectures, seminars and discussions on nuclear theory related to his work in “hot” regions of the nuclear chart.

· Next week 10/02/2010 Gry Tveten will present her work on a HIE-ISOLDE spectrometer.

Minutes by DTY