2. STAR Project Summary
Work on the STAR facilities began. Portions of the floor under the detector rail system in the wide angle hall were replaced. A preliminary design review of the central trigger barrel system will be held April 26.The hardware and software effort is dedicated to preparing for the summer system test. This test has focused on the development effort, and good progress has been made on all fronts. Tests of the quality of the transmission over the clock and control cable was made, and preliminary work on the system concepts and devices to provide the functionality were completed. Four items are needed for the mini DAQ portion of the system test: pad monitor, calibration software, histograming capabilities and experiment control that will direct the DAQ, Trigger and Slow Control System.
The temporary DAQ receiver card (mezzanine card for the cyclone card) has been designed and is in layout. The DSM (level 0 trigger processing board) prototype has been designed and is being fabricated. There are more than 30 prototype preamplifier-shaper chips in hand that will be used with existing front-end cards to meet the TPC FEE system test milestone of June, 1995.
The slow controls communication and data to be monitored have been understood. The HDLC link to the front end electronics hardware has been completed and software is under test. Software to initialize and monitor the TPC readout card is being designed.
TPC Summary and Highlights
The OFC end and termination rings have been received and inspected. The tape application hardware for winding the gas cylinder has been assembled and installed. Commissioning tests have begun.The equipment needed to etch the field cage flex circuit board material is being assembled and the artwork has been received.
The first production sector has passed all tests, two other units are in test, and a third sector is nearly complete.
The wheel drawings have been revised to correct dimensioning deficiencies. The wheel specification and an inspection procedure are in work.
Roughly half the components for the gas system are on hand or have been ordered. Component procurement will continue in March.
The design of the laser system continues to mature. A simplified laser beam routing, through the magnet end rings, is being explored. An ECR/N will be filed if such a hole in the magnet rings does not create an intolerable perturbation of the TPC's magnetic field.
Magnet Summary and Highlights
Drawings for the winding fixture and coil lifting spider assembly were received from Tesla. Three Steel RFP responses were received this month. The evaluation was started with the goal of completing the process in March. Work continued on the main supports and the pole tip supports.
Electronics Summary and Highlights
The latest version of the SAS chip arrived from Orbit in mid-February, and testing started immediately. The chip is very close to the production version. Though more testing remains, one more SAS iteration is planned, and will include two minor fixes. It will have slightly lower gain, so the wire gain can be increased to maintain the required signal-to-noise ratio and dynamic range. The new FEE boards arrived, were populated with parts, and underwent testing. Design has begun on the trigger/clock distribution module, and a scheme has been found that will generate the SCA clock with the required tolerances. A prototype signal fanout system has been built and tested using National Semiconductor LVDS (low voltage differential signal) drivers and receivers. The system has the required bandwidth, but the common mode voltage rejection is marginal. The 68302-based HDLC link prototype hardware is now working, and software testing has begun. In addition to the pieces discussed above, work is proceeding on the overall design of the readout boards. Alexander Vasilevsky visited LBL to discuss the possibility of buying ferro-resonant supplies from Dubna.In February, DAQ completed design work on the temporary receiver card hardware. The mezzanine board is now in the PC layout stage. Progress on the ASIC was less than satisfactory. The functional and commercial specifications relating to the engineering design phase of this effort were submitted to BNL Procurement on February 2. No progress was made in Procurement during the remainder of February.
Documents describing the trigger group's approach to levels 0, 1, and 2 are available on the WWW. Hardware prototyping is moving forward, with a new flash ADC being tested for the VPD TDC system. Results of the two-TDC approach look promising. Simulations supporting all of the trigger detector designs and the general pipeline approach are now available on the WWW. Also included are notes and some results of the level 3 and 4 simulations.
A new and better method of controlling the LeCroy 1440 power supply has been found at CEBAF. Progress has been made on the essential model that connects Slow Controls to Run Controls. Preliminary OMT models for the front end electronics have been drawn up. Slow Controls documentation has been updated on the World Wide Web.
Computing Summary and Highlights
No changes in hardware occurred in February. A 1995 maintenance contract was purchased for the Informix Database product on Sun.Work developing special event generators for studying Lambda-Lambda and K0-short-K0-short HBT correlations progressed. Significant progress was made converting the present implementation of Geant for STAR into the framework used for NA49. The TPC slow simulator TAS module was updated and installed in the STAR library. The SVT medium simulator was written and installed as a TAS module in the STAR library. A second pass was added to the TPC tracking module which is used to improve tracking efficiency for low pt (~100 MeV/c) tracks. A TPC calibration and corrections procedure and requirements document was drafted.
A series of regular video conference meetings was organized to discuss the software modelling effort using the OMT methodology. The AFS file server was set up at BNL. The initial dataset library to be used in the present analysis shell was released in February. The on-line design effort, following the OMT methodology, continued with cooperation from DAQ and slow controls. The data file manager (dfm) is being moved from the original Informix database to Oracle.
STAR PHOTO OF THE MONTH
A prototype of the STAR TPC 32 channel Front End Electronics cards. Most of the active elements are included in two 16 channel preamplifier/shapers (SAS) chips and two 16 channel, 512 deep switched capacitor arrays, with on-board 12 bit ADCs SCA) ICs. Both chips are fully custom designs.3. Notice of Meetings:
STAR Electromagnetic Calorimeter Meeting Design Choice for the Barrel March 31 - April 1, 1995. For more information please contact David Underwood, ANL Central Trigger Barrel Preliminary Design Review April 25, 1995. Rice University For more information please contact Billy Bonner, Rice. Tas Training school at the University of Texas at Austin May 15 - 19, 1995. For info. look under STAR meetings -> workshops on WWW or Contact Lanny Ray at UT Austin. STAR Simulations Workshop June 22 and 23, 1995, Brookhaven For more information please contact Bill Love, BNL TPC tracking workshop To be held at MIT on Monday, Tue 26-27 June 1995. For more information please contact Craig Ogilvie, MIT4. Christies Corner
Greetings from Long Island. The temperatures have started to rise here on the island and Spring is in the air. In addition to watching the leaves and birds return to the trees, and the flowers start to blossom, this Spring we can also watch the STAR assembly building (AB) rise from the sand. Work started on the AB about a month ago. The contractor has been chipping out the center portion of the floor in the Wide Angle Hall (WAH) to replace the one ft thick concrete with three ft, to carry the load of the STAR detector. There are now large earthmoving machines on site which are clearing away a portion of the RHIC berm and preparing the site for the STAR AB. There was an official ground breaking ceremony at the site on March 17th. In addition to the local RHIC and BNL chiefs (S.Ozaki, N.Samios, T.Kirk), the DOE was represented by J.Yeck and STAR was represented by J.Marx and B.Edwards. Photos were taken and should be available on the WWW soon. Jay was given his chrome plated shovel with a STAR logo to keep. In lieu of a STAR trophy case, the shovel can be viewed here at BNL in the STAR management office.
Ground Breaking Ceremony
Construction Site for STAR Assembly Building
The PHENIX detector is going through a review here at BNL this week (March 27 - 29) similar to the review STAR went through last October at LBL. I'll attend some of the presentations and the closeout.
The experimental ultra-relativistic heavy ion group of the University of Washington Nuclear Physics Laboratory has a postdoctoral position opening that we would like to fill starting in the Summer or Fall of 1995. The University of Washington Nuclear Physics Laboratory is a major university-based research laboratory supported by the U. S. Department of Energy. The ultra-relativistic heavy ion group is a participant in the NA49 collaboration at CERN (time-projection-chamber studies of 33 TeV Pb ions on fixed targets) and the STAR collaboration at Brookhaven (time-projection-chamber studies of 20 TeV Au + 20 TeV Au ions using the RHIC collider). Information on the UW/NPL experimental program in ultra-relativistic heavy ion physics and other areas can be found on World Wide Web at:
http://mist.npl.washington.edu/home.html
Postdoctoral appointments at the University of Washington are for two years and are often renewable for a third year. Interested candidates should submit their resume and also should arrange to have three letters of recommendation sent.
Until July 31, 1995, applications and recommendations should be sent to:
Professor John G. Cramer, Max Planck Institute for Physics, Foehringer Ring 6, D-80805 Munich, Germany.
After August 1, 1995, applications and recommendations should be sent to:
Professor John G. Cramer, Nuclear Physics Laboratory GL-10, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
The University of Washington is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.
We have a research associate position at WSU for SVT related research, that we would like to fill as soon as possible. We offer a one-year contract, which can be extended to two years. The position is closely connected to ongoing SVT research at WSU. We are specifically looking for a hardware oriented person, who will mostly participate in ongoing SDD testing at WSU. Some experience with semiconductors and computer programming is prefered. Please send applications to:
To serve as the software project leader for the STAR detector at RHIC. Applicants must have a record of significant contribution to high-energy/nuclear physics, which must include knowledge of the software needs of large physics detectors, including infrastructure, and on-line and off-line detector simulation and data analysis. The successful candidate will lead the software effort and contribute to the physics of the STAR detector in the initial years, and, over the long term, will be expected to make a substantial contribution to the physics interests of BNL/RHIC. Contact:
5. Comings and goings at STAR
None reported this month.
6. Employment opportunities
Postdoctoral Research Associate Position in Experimental Ultra-Relativistic Heavy Ion Physics
Research Associate Position at Wayne State University
Scientist