STAR Newsletter for March 1999
31 March 1999
Editor: Bill Christie, BNL
Reported by John Harris
On March 12 a contingent from STAR (Marx, Hallman, Harris, Vigdor, Jacobs) and BNL (Ozaki, Ludlam, Kirk) visited the National Science Foundation to discuss the proposal to NSF (present were Eisenstein, Demers, Keister, ...) for funding to add an Endcap Electromagnetic Calorimeter to STAR. Steve Vigdor gave a stimulating presentation of the physics the device would bring to the RHIC Spin Program. The NSF response was extremely positive. As a Major Research Initiative, this proposal will be in competition with other proposals across the Math and Physical Sciences Program at the NSF. As such, the NSF requested a technical review of the proposal by BNL and RHIC. This review by a RHIC arranged STAR Endcap Calorimeter Review Committee (G. Apollinari, D. Hertzog, J. Martin, B. Mecking, S. White) has been scheduled for May 4-5 (Tuesday - Wednesday) at BNL. Some of the committee members have served on the RHIC Technical Review Committee which has reviewed the STAR EMC Barrel. Much work has gone into this proposal by the STAR Indiana group and collaborators, and we hope that the review goes successfully.
The next STAR Collaboration Meeting will be held at BNL on August 2 and 3, just after the end of the Commissioning run (ends July 31). It is expected that this meeting will be primarily plenary sessions summaries, and that the working group meetings usually associated with collaboration meetings will be ongoing throughout the summer running period at BNL.
A STAR Shift Policy Committee has been appointed by me to recommend a scheme for manning shifts during the normal operation (starting with the run in November) of STAR. The members are Chuck Whitten (UCLA, chair), Bill Christie (BNL), Jim Thomas (LBNL), Peter Jacobs (LBNL), Jack Sandweiss (Yale), John Nelson (Birmingham), and Gary Westfall (MSU). Please contact any of these members if you have suggestions or issues that may need to be addressed.
The STAR installation and test schedule has changed as a result of the RHIC schedule change (the elimination of the March beam circulation run and the moving forward of the June 1 accelerator commissioning run to May 15th). This impacts STAR in a number of ways. We've shuffled a few tasks, including rolling the detector into the WAH in early March (instead of April) and postponing MAG tests until after this move. This shuffle will focus our efforts on getting the final utility, monitoring and signal connections made to the detector in its final home before beginning our final detector commissioning efforts. There will then be a quiet and contiguous 4-5 weeks for commissioning and debugging prior to the be-ginning of beam circulation May 15th.
TPC water and gas plumbing efforts are nearly complete. The pacing items for the project are still these two items as well as Global Interlocks, Safety Systems and Safety and ORR Committee approval.
The Magnet power supply modifications are pretty much complete. The Magnet will be ready to begin its last set of tests per the new schedule on around March 24th.
The electronics efforts are all moving pretty well. About 90% of the RDO boards were installed on the TPC by the end of February. Testing and debugging efforts continue on about the expected pace - just sufficient to meet the schedule. Trigger electronics should have their final design reviews in March - production hardware is behind schedule.
Work progressed on the cooling water plumbing on the TPC. The work on the water skid (TPC cooling water supply) will proceed when parts and manpower are available for modifications and testing but on a schedule that meets our need. The installation of gas lines from the gas room to the TPC location in the Assembly Hall and the WAH continues. The laser working area is mechanically complete with curtains; it has been reviewed, but final approval is pending completion of the interlocked personal proximity barrier.
Production models for the gating grid driver have been received and have undergone some testing. The 120-sensor, temperature monitoring system for the TPC face and cooling system has been designed and is in production. A temporary air control system for the inner field insulator gap is being designed.
Construction is complete and Magnet has met all of its requirements. See WBS 4.11 Installation and Testing for a summary of Magnet testing activities.
Almost all of the readout boards were installed on the TPC and cabled in February. MicroDAQ and Pad Monitor were moved to the South Platform, installed and tested. Permission was received to turn on the FEE power supplies, and ~6 supersectors of readout boards were tested with power on. Events were read out with MicroDAQ and Pad Monitor. Several bugs in the pad ordering were found and fixed. However, Pad Monitor still displays frequent instances of digital noise: single time buckets with values far from the expected ones. This problem is now being intensely studied.
Production of DAQ receiver and mezzanine boards continues. The yield from the PCB fabricator is much lower than expected and is a cause for concern. Integration of software pieces continues. MicroDAQ is in use for FEE electronics testing. Jeff Landgraf has joined the group.
High voltage control for the CTB is now operational under the Slow Controls software at BNL. All trigger crates are under VME power control through the Slow Controls software, and our UPS now allows remote power control as well. The new network hardware was installed on the platform and used for HV control in our tests. Our basic shell hardware remains in the DAQ room because of changes in the roll-in schedule and consequent platform power disruption.
The second spin of the CTB digitizer board is now fully tested and ready for review. The RHIC Clock and Control (RCC), the RCC fanout units, and the first DSMI board are loaded and ready for tests. The Detector Interface Board (DIB) is ready for fabrication. Our three test crates have been operated with their own control CPUs for volume testing of the CDB and MWC sector control boards as well as for DSM and TCU testing. The second TCU is now ready for operation, giving us a complete backup at LBNL.
Work proceeds on the operation shell; clean-up includes configurable debug routing, and identification of all relevant tasks and queues. The configuration files have been established for at least three different operation modes. The system has been operated with more than 100 tokens successfully passing through the loops and returning to the stacks. Clean-up will continue as we prepare for our speed tests late in March.
All our off-line code is now in root and in CVS. The DST tables for trigger were successfully filled and read during MDC2.
The slow controls terminal server, enabling serial port connections to controls MVME162 CPUs, has been installed on platform 2.
Several subsystem controls software packages have been installed on sc.star (Sun Solaris); most vme CPUs now boot from this workstation. However outstanding problems remain with the gpib interface and vme crate monitoring. These subsystems continue to boot from starslow.star (Sun OS4) for the time being.
Archer Lin, Dylan Thein, Tim Huyck and Tom McShane are now based at BNL for the integration of the STAR Controls system.
February was dominated by the Mock Data Challenge 2 which began on February 22nd. By the start of MDC2 over 1TB of simulated data from PSC, NERSC and Rice was ready and the ROOT-based offline production chain configured for year 1 and year 2 data was ready. The new TPC response simulation code was not yet debugged and validated so the old simulator, tss, was readied and used. Many new and improved codes were readied for MDC2, including the TPC/DAQ interface, SVT-SSD tracking, SVT dE/dx, cascade reconstruction, FTPC, EMC, trigger, primary vertex finder and global tracking as well as the ROOT-based infrastructure and ROOT DST storage. Excellent participation from the physics working groups, TPC group and other subdetector software groups aided rapid diagnosis and fixing of problems, and kept production activity closely coupled to analysis and subdetector needs. Early running exposed problems in both memory and CPU consumption; production was switched to the fast simulation chain with one (rather than two) jobs per machine while an intensive effort to trim unneeded memory and CPU went on. By the latter part of MDC2 we were able to run our largest jobs, slow-simulator VENUS, with two jobs per machine. HPSS performed well relative to MDC1, but the reconstruction farm performed poorly with frequent disruptions often related to unstable remote disk access. By the end of STAR's dedicated MDC2 period (to intrude upon March somewhat) we had reconstructed about 40k fastsimulator events and 20k slow-simulator events. The StEvent C++ data model was deployed before MDC2 and used in physics tag filling and analysis/diagnostic codes. Also during the month TPC calibration data structures were defined and implemented. In On-line, Mei-Li Chen joined the BNL group as a full-time on-line developer, and installation of equipment in the control room began.
The vast majority of CNV hardware is completed - water systems, AC power systems, access (scaffolding and platform) systems, etc. Below is a summary of the items remaining - primarily interlocks and safety-related items with the ex-ception of the festoon system for hanging the fiber data cables between the detector and the DAQ room.
The Global Interlocks System continues to progress. Much of the PLC programming is done, and wiring is essentially complete. Sometime in March, the system will be delivered and installed for tests.
On the Safety Systems front, the water leak detection system is complete and tested. The Gas leak detection hardware has been installed and will be tested in March. The HSSD (high sensitivity smoke detector) specifications are ready to go out for bid.
The Festoon System hardware, which was to be delivered in mid/late February, is now due March 5th. The Festoon support hardware is installed. With the change in RHIC schedule and the resulting change i the detector roll-in date, we are now planning to string the fibers from the detector to the DAQ room in early/mid April (12th - 16th week). This will still allow us to utilize production hardware at both ends of the fiber for final commissioning efforts.
The RHIC Project Office announced a change in the end-game schedule, canceling the March machine run and moving the startup forward two weeks from June 1st to May 15th. In response, the STAR I&T schedule was reshuffled in order to move the detector into the WAH as soon as possible, perform the magnet power supply testing immediately after, and then have the remaining month in the WAH for subsystem testing prior to the first machine run. Much of February was spent installing the TPC water system in the facility and completing the safety interlock system wiring on the detector. The festoon supports were also installed as well as the vacuum pipe supports in the WAH. At the end of February, the SVT support cone installation fixture was erected and the SVT cone is to be installed along with the temporary aluminum beam pipe in early March. Next month the detector will be rolled into the WAH and be prepared for magnet power supply testing.
A STAR Baseline Scheduling Workshop occurred on February 1st with all sub-system managers present. A refined list of subsystem and project milestones at a detailed level was established. Since the announcement of the RHIC schedule change, with minor modification, we have a plan that takes us from the present to the conclusion of prebeam commissioning (May 15th) and beyond. A plan for the summer shutdown is being developed and will be finalized in late March/early April.
Trigger electronics should have their final design reviews in March - production hardware is behind scheduled. A decision will be made regarding this subject in March.
A final design review (FDR) was held for the STAR EMC on February 24 and 25th. The EMC group (from WSU, MSU, UCLA, etc.) has done a very solid job and very few recommended changes were discussed. They were given permission to proceed to module assembly. A committee report will be out soon. A RHIC ESC (safety) review of the EMC should be scheduled shortly.
Installation of the Ground Integrity Detector is complete. It is waiting for hardware to be read out by EPICS.
Installation of fibers has been postponed because of the change to STAR's installation plan. The new time will be in April. At tha time, all fiber-optic cables will be strung from the detector to the DAQ room. This will be the last time to add a fiber until after the June run.
STAR Collaboration meeting, August 2nd and 3rd, 1999 at BNL. For further information please contact John Harris.
Greetings from Long Island. Spring has started to arrive here on Long Island. We've had a few days with high temperatures in the 60 F range, and a cold night now is in the high 30's. The Crocus flowers have bloomed, the Daffodils are starting to sprout, and there are buds on many of the trees. Although we've had a very mild winter here on Long Island, I still look forward to the unfolding Spring and the warm summer months to follow.
I reported last month on the change in the RHIC endgame schedule, with the early collider tests in March deferred, and the beam startup pushed forward in the Spring to May 15th. This schedule has been tuned slightly in the past month. To avoid a conflict with a NASA run at the AGS, and allow the collider testing to come on with a gold beam, as opposed to iron, the start of beam tests in now scheduled for May the 18th. I also learned this past month that to avoid having to "train" (run up in current and quench a few times) the superconducting magnets in the collider, that the first beams used in the collider testing will have an energy of about 50 GeV*A. The general plan is to accelerate beams to this energy and work on getting closed orbits and other collider commissioning milestones accomplished. At some point during the commissioning run, depending on how things progress, the collider would then be taken up to full energy.
A lot has happened out at the STAR site during March. With the change to the Endgame schedule that I detailed in last months Newsletter, the SVT support cone and the all aluminum STAR beam pipe were installed into the detector in early March. The STAR beam pipe with the 1.5 m long center Beryllium section was on site in early March, but it was decided not to hold up the STAR installation schedule for the week or so that it was projected to take to have the new pipe tested and certified. The pipe with the Beryllium section will go in this summer for the first physics run.
Once the pipe was in, the necessary utility disconnects were made to prepare the STAR detector to be moved to the Wide Angle Hall (WAH). The actual move of the detector started on Tuesday, March 9th, and was completed on the morning of the 10th. Once this was done the reconnection of all of the utilities in the WAH was started. If one looks at the construction picture, linked to the STAR WWW page, one can see a view of the STAR detector with the beam pipe in place.
Further testing of the magnet power supplies started on March 25th, and is scheduled to be complete by April 8th. Once this testing is completed the poletips will be retracted from the magnet so that further installation and testing can be done on the TPC electronics. The week of April 12th will see alot of activity around the detector and the facility as we prepare for what we hope is our last Operational Readiness Review (ORR) before the commissioning run. This ORR is scheduled for the afternoon of April 19th. Once we pass this ORR, and close out any "prestart" findings from the ORR, we should be allowed to introduce P-10 into the TPC again and start testing all of the STAR systems in preparation for beam. There is still alot of work to do, and a myriad of documents, approvals, etc. left to work out, but it still looks like the STAR detector will be ready for beam by mid-May.
Jan Chrin has left Creighton University, and STAR, for a position in Europe.
James Dunlop has joined the Yale group in STAR.
Jeffery Landgraf has joined the BNL STAR group.
Applications are invited for a research opening in relativistic heavy ion physics starting in early 1999. The group is working on the hardware controls system (using EPICS and CDEV) and test data analysis for the STAR experiment. Applicants should outline their experience with electronic interfaces and controls software. The successful candidate will have an interest in working with undergraduate and Masters students. He/she should plan to be based at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Contact Dr. Michael Cherney, Physics Department, Creighton University, 2500 California Plaza, Omaha, NE 68178. (email:mcherney@creighton.edu) Creighton University is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Employer.
The University of Washington Nuclear Physics Laboratory seeks applicants for a postdoctoral position in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion physics. This person would participate in research at CERN with the NA49 collaboration and at RHIC with the STAR collaboration. The UW research program emphasizes a variety of novel approaches to multiparticle correlation analysis and event-by-event physics leading to discovery and study of the quark-gluon plasma. We seek candidates with strong mathematical and programming skills as well as experience in high-energy heavy-ion experiments. The UW is also involved in the development of TPC tracking software and trigger algorithms for STAR.
The duration of the appointment is two years with possibility of renewel for a third year. Research activity would be sited mainly in Seattle, with some amount of time (up to 25% total) spent in intervals at the RHIC collider at BNL.
Applications should be sent to:
Prof. Thomas A. Trainor Nuclear Physics Laboratory 354290 University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195 trainor@hausdorf.npl.washington.edu
CSN0273A - H. MatisRack Assignments for Clean Power on the Platform and in the DAQ Room.CSN0279A - H. MatisSTAR Electrical Power RequirementsSN0388 - R.J.M. Snellings, A.M. Poskanzer, and S.A. VoloshinAnisotropic Flow at STARSN0389 - J. RisoProposal fot the Identification of components and EMC's fiber bundles path in the STAR barrel.SN0390 - R. Brown, B. Christie, B. Edwards, Y. Makdisi, H. Matis, A. Pendzick, S. White, and H. WiemanRICH Detector Design ReviewSN0391 - P. Jacobs and T. UllrichJ/Psi Cross Sections, Rates, and Acceptance in STAR