STAR NEWSLETTER NUMBER 19

1. From the spokesman:

Reported by JOHN HARRIS

The U.S. Nuclear Science Advisory Committee met last week and accepted the Report of the NSAC Subcommittee which reviewed the RHIC Additional Experimental Equipment. The Report has been used in deliberations on the Long Range Plan and is important to the funding of additional RHIC detectors for STAR and PHENIX. The report of the Subcommittee will now be mailed out from me to each institutional representative for reference. It is imperative for the physics of STAR that we move ahead and get the "upgrades" ready for technical review and in place for funding. In my view this involves not only all the obvious aspects involved in developing conceptual design reports, but also to make sure that we have sufficient manpower (and the right kind) to carry out each of the "upgrade" detector projects. To this end, I just wish to point out that in no way is STAR "set", as outsiders may think, with no need for new collaborators. I suggest that we should continue to make those outside STAR aware of the opportunities within STAR, unless people feel like they don't have enough to do (if so see me!).

We will have a review of RHIC Spin Physics, and the capabilities of the detectors to carry out the physics, at BNL on June 5 and 6. Preparing for the review will require some help from various members of STAR (outside the EMC). Tim Hallman has been contacting people about various aspects of STAR data-taking (tracking in high luminosity pp, data-acquisition, triggering, ...) that requires some refinement prior to presentation of the STAR capabilites in the RHIC Spin Program.

A meeting to choose the mechanical technology for the EMC took place March 31-April 1 at ANL. A preliminary mechanical review of the SVT will take place in late May at BNL. A review of the software infrastructure effort will be held in September. A request was made of RHIC to begin planning for the design effort that will provide STAR with cooled, low conductivity water for the STAR magnet.

Three baseline change requests were submitted to RHIC management for signature. None of these changes adversely affects the STAR baseline construction schedule, but slipping the beneficial occupancy date on the facility has placed it on the critical path along with the electronics. In April, project management will begin to consider the effects of a possible funding stretch-out.

The integration of the STAR detector proceeded in several areas during March. Ross Schlueter was tasked with analyzing the effect a collapsing field would have on the TPC end and termination rings, as well as determining deviations to the field caused by the EMC strong back. Work is continuing on a cable nomenclature scheme and on the development of the assembly sequence for STAR. Work is continuing in defining the interface between the SVT and TPC.

Input pertaining to the layout of rack components has been requested from each subsystem. Bill Christie held a meeting to discuss the cost options of air conditioning the facilities, or simply having the detector use tents.

TPC Summary and Highlights

The equipment to be used to etch the field cage flex circuit board material has been run to determine the carriage speed and lamp distance for proper exposure at a safe operating temperature. The artwork and the copper/Kapton material have been inspected and meet specifications.

Three of the first four production sectors have passed all tests. Five sectors are in various stages of assembly.

The wheel drawings and specification are complete. Candidate inspection techniques are being studied.

The majority of gas system parts are either in-hand or on order. Leonid Kotchenda will return to LBL in April to finalize the design.

The glass tubes which form the backbone of the laser rafts have been received and show significant bowing. The new Nd-Yag laser beam profile shows a two peak profile in the UV. The problem has been traced to the first doubling crystal, and the vendor has been notified. An ECR/N has been filed for routing the laser beam through the magnet end rings.

A new mechanical engineer, Roanne Lee, has joined the TPC subsystem. Her presence is partly in compensation for the loss of Derek Shuman who is moving on to another project at LBL. Roanne is an engineer with 17 years of experience in both technical and managerial positions.

Magnet Summary and Highlights

The RFP process for the steel proceeded and should be completed in April. Work continued on the main and poletip supports.

Electronics Summary and Highlights

In March, the temporary receiver card progressed. The hardware design is complete, and the board is now in layout. STAR negotiated a project license agreement with Wind River that allows DAQ to use VxWorks and MicroWorks products at a price that is within our budget. The deadline for submission of bids for the engineering design of the cluster finder ASIC was March 24. The bids are being examined at this time.

The data storage and manipulation board prototype is wired and nearly loaded. The trigger control unit prototype is now in fabrication. Simulations efforts have produced good lego versions of detector response for individual events for AuAu, SiSi, and pp running. Each version is on the WWW. People are working to finish the investigation of pad rows required for cluster finding and subsequent tracking.

Software requirements for the Slow Controls and pad monitoring aspects of the TPC test run scheduled for this Summer have been evaluated. In preparation for the above systems test, a preliminary method of writing to and reading from VME memory using a Beta version of the latest EPICS application software (v.3.12) was realized. Further developments of the OMT models for the TPC front end electronics were presented to the working group members by Tom McShane.

Computing Summary and Highlights

Hijing was restored to working status on irix and aix and installed in the library. The first pass was completed for the implementation of Geant 3.21 for STAR. A STAR Note describing the assumed structure and materials used in simulations and tracking for the TPC was written. Further progress was made on the TPC slow simulator. Significant progress was made in debugging the event reconstruction analysis chain (the so-called BFC) to enable it to successfully handle multi-event processing. Draft documents for TPC, SVT and CTF describing calibration and correction procedures and as well as software requirements were written. A System Test software plan and work list was developed.

A series of meetings to discuss the software design effort following the OMT methodology have begun. Work setting up the AFS file system for the software library is proceeding. Work on implementing the method of joining and projecting tables is progressing. Work cleaning up and testing the dataset library in the on-line environment of VxWorks progressed. An effort to investigate the model for experiment control began with a simulator using make files and shell scripts. Work progressed on moving the data file manager from the Informix database to Oracle.

4. Christies Corner

Greetings from Long Island. Spring has sprung and the local flora is in bloom. The BNL Program Advisory Committee met on the 7th of this month to review proposals for experiments. Of interest to the RHIC community was the presentation of the BRAHMS proposal/CDR. I haven't seen the actual text of the letter, but from what I understand the PAC strongly supported the BRAHMS proposal. The next step for BRAHMS will be Technical review, scheduled for June 9th and 10th here at BNL.

The RHIC "End Game" plan/report was presented in a seminar here at BNL by Mike Marx (Stony Brook) on April 27th. The reader may recall from previous mentions of this topic that the report was arrived at via the collaborative efforts of the RHIC accelerator group and the RHIC experimental groups. Mike Marx was the chairman of the committee that produced the plan. The report is available through RHIC as RHIC Detector Note #16. The plan has been accepted by Tom Ludlam and Satoshi Ozaki, and will become part of the RHIC management plan.

There was another meeting of the STAR HVAC committee on April 27th at BNL and LBL via the Video link. This effort, chaired by myself, has fairly well defined the heat loads and the temperature and humidity requirements for STAR. We are presently considering possible HVAC systems which can meet these requirements in a cost effective way. We hope to reach a decision on this issue soon.

The 1995 STAR AGS test beam run will start on May 1st here at BNL and run for two weeks. The STAR EMC group will be finishing up some tests of the calorimeter itself that were started in the test beam last July, in addition to testing two variants of wire/strip type Shower maximum detectors and their associated FEE.

6. Employment opportunities

Postdoctoral Research Associate Position in Experimental Ultra-Relativistic Heavy Ion Physics

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.

Scientist

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:

Postdoctoral Position

7. New STAR NOTES since the last Newsletter