STAR Newsletter #82 July 2001
	Star Home Page				Editor: Howard Matis

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Contents

1. Spokesman's Column
2. STAR Operations
3. Detectors and Subsystems
4. Period Coordinators Report
5. Physics Working Groups (protected area)
6. People: Comings and Goings
7. Announcements
8. Employment Opportunities

Spokesman's Column (John Harris)

There was considerable activity at the STAR Collaboration Meeting at BNL the end of June. There were many new faces, presentations of new data analyses from members of STAR, and much discussion. Just never seems to be enough time for discussion.

There was also much activity to report from the Council Meeting. M. Messer and T. Ljubicic presented manpower needs for the Software/Computing and Runtime Systems Efforts in STAR, respectively. As a result, the Council agreed that there was a serious need for better support of these efforts in order for STAR to remain successful. The spokesman shall contact the institutional representatives seeking institutional responses to the manpower requests. Furthermore, students and postdocs who utilize a specific detector as a principal source of data should be prepared to spend time helping test detectors and software. The spokesman shall also form a manpower committee to identify manpower for essential tasks in STAR.

Members of the Indian groups from Institute of Physics - Bhubaneswar, VECC - Calcutta, Panjab U. - Chandrigarh, U. Rajasthan - Jaipur, Jammu U., and IIT - Bombay, who are constructing the Photon Multiplicity Detector for installation in STAR were admitted formally as members of STAR. Those groups satisfying the requirements for institutional representation on the Council (see STAR Bylaws) will be institutional members of STAR and have representation on the Council. We welcome our new members from India into STAR. The Council discussed the first-time request from the Chinese TOF-RPC groups from USTC, Tsinghua U., Shanghai Institute of Nuclear Research, Institute of Modern Physics (Lanzhou) to join STAR. The Council agreed unanimously that these groups should be supported and encouraged to participate in testing and prototyping of a TOF-RPC patch and formulation of a barrel TOF-RPC proposal. Further information and discussion is still needed prior to a formal vote on admission to STAR, which could take place later this summer.

The status of the French Silicon Strip Detector (SSD) Project was discussed. A STAR Review of the SSD project was recently completed. The review committee consisting of R. Bellwied (chair), H. Wieman, and W. Leonhardt presented their report stating that the project was on schedule. The Council accepted the report as written, and agreed unanimously that the project should proceed and that the requested $200K in capital equipment money from BNL and STAR (in addition to $200K from SUBATECH) be provided to complete the project. Tim Hallman will now work with the French groups to complete a memorandum of understanding. We look forward to installation of the SSD in STAR next year.

The Junior Council Members requested that, due to the increased number of students working on STAR, their representation on the Council should be increased from 3 representatives to 4 (two graduate students and two postdocs). Since this requires a change in the Bylaws, an email action with at least two weeks notice prior to voting will be required. The registration fee for collaboration meetings was discussed. In the past students were not required to pay the registration fee in order to encourage student participation in all activities. It was agreed that the junior members shall also pay the registration fee and obtain reimbursement from their university. The other formulations with no registration fee for students disfavored and burdened others in the collaboration who must pay the fee, possibly without reimbursement, so this appeared to be the fairest route. The university representatives on the Council noted that paying the registration fee should not affect participation of students at collaboration meetings.

After wide-ranging discussion, the Council voted unanimously to approve changes to the Bylaws that were proposed by a Council subcommittee. Among the changes the Bylaws now call for a Council election of the Spokesperson every three years and Council election of a Council Chairperson every two years. Discussion on the topic of an Executive Board began to focus rather on an Advisory Board. Details were to be worked out by email in the Council as soon as possible.

The Council agreed that the next collaboration meeting would be held in early February 2002, most likely at BNL. There was also agreement to hold the July 2002 collaboration meeting in Nantes, France, just before the Nantes Quark Matter 2002 Conference.

STAR Operations

Last week, beam was accelerated to 65 GeV in each ring. On Sunday, the beam was cogged for a short time and Phobos saw some collisions. On Tuesday evening, STAR turned on most of the detectors and triggered on beam gas events. In the early hours of Wednesday, we logged a few hundred events on tape. The STAR detector performed superbly. This newsletter has several pictures of the initial events. Early this morning, the interaction rate increased to several Hertz.

Detectors and Subsystems

FTPC (from Volker Eckardt)

On July 11, we received a few minutes of beam with the magnetic field off. This picture shows tracks in one of the FTPC's from a collision.

Slow Controls (from Mike Cherney)

Additional subsystems are included and automated startup procedures are in place. The Archiver has been revised. The Alarm Handler has been updated. Slow Controls is linked to Run Control and passes messages that stop the run whenever there is a major system failure. The web pages have been updated.

EMC (from Thomas Cormier)

No contribution this month

TPC (from Blair Stringfellow)

We put P10 into the TPC starting on July 5 and took a laser run the next day. Everything appeared operational. We do have one readout board that appears not to work at full magnetic field which is a mystery. Other than that the TPC is ready for collisions.

Level 3 Trigger (from the commissioning contingent)

Below is the first heavy ion collision for 2001. This year you can see the FTPC, SVT, RICH on the display. Tracking is extended to the RICH but not to the FTPC. Only the clusters for the FTPC are shown without any tracking.

Endcap EMC (from Will Jacobs)

A few highlights & milestones since the last report in February

Received pulsed UV laser for tower diagnostics, refined scribing technique and began production of "leaky" fibers

Reviewed & finalized design for tower CW (Dubna) tapered bases (& proto MAPMT base) & HV control system

Reviewed final tower megatile design, pre-production sectors, QA/C procedures (tile-by-tile cosmic ray stand) and began Endcap megatile production! -- note: WLS fiber and scintillator material for first 1/2 detector on hand

Fabricated (ANL) 30 degree prototype and pre-production SMD modules and developed QA/C. A successful review was held at ANL 2-3 July, 2001 and production will start soon

Laminated radiator prototype section, ordered full size lead and SS. Glue jig table fabricated & then installed at IUCF -- awaiting pre-production SS and lead delivery in next weeks

Designed PMT and MAPMT "boxes" (TAMU) with appropriate magnetic shield and housings (Dubna), developed tiling on back of pole tip and detailed fiber harness and fiber routing. Review scheduled for 18 July at TAMU.

Prototyped MAPMT front end electronics (FEE) cards and board layouts. Second round prototype with 4 channels/board, 5th card design and increased functionality due by the end of the month

Initiated detailed planning for FY02 shutdown pre-install and install work at STAR.

SVT

The SVT has detected particles in the first interaction triggers. This graph shows hits in one of the hybrids. In this event, there are 5 clusters produced by tracks. The two rectangles on the left are produced by noise and look completely different from real hits.

Period Coordinator Reports

My stint as period coordinator was (is) the first of the new run this year. It has been very interesting to observe the complex start up of the RHIC complex and the (also complex!) STAR detector. All things considered, the turn on has been quite successful. The collider has achieved collisions at 130 GeV/A and a first sample of 380 events have been recorded and clearly are approximately correct. A few calibrations need to be done (e.g. drift velocity) but the events look amazingly good.

In addition, the SVT and the Forward TPCs also seem to have worked on the first try! The DAQ recorded data from TPC, FTPCs, RICH, SVT, and Tofp on these events.

Something I am trying to get organized is the fast offline QA checks. Of course, the real work here has been done by the hardworking experts, but it seems there is some need to get it all synchronized and routinely exercised in the daily shift processes. In this ,I can (hopefully) help.

The estimate is that by the end of this weekend we should see collisions of 200 GeV/A gold ions.

Physics Working Groups - (See the protected area)

This section contains summaries of the status of the physics working groups. These articles are in a protected area for STAR collaboration members only. This link uses the standard STAR account and password for physics results. If you do not have this information, please contact your council representative.

People

	Coming Milestones Les Bland has accepted a STAR Spin Physics position at BNL starting August 2001 (he will be on leave from Indiana University). As a result, Steve Vigdor has resigned as IU Physics Department chair, in order to concentrate his efforts on STAR Spin Physics contributions from IU and issues of Endcap construction.

Announcements

Employment Opportunities

The University of California at Davis: Postdoctoral Position

The Heavy-Ion group invites applications for a postdoctoral research position to begin in Summer 2001. The focus of the work will be the STAR experiment at RHIC. We have been working on hardware and analysis topics relating to the central and forward TPCs. The successful candidate will be expected to contribute to STAR-wide efforts such as data taking, calibrations, simulations, and writing software. However, one should expect a large proportion of time to be devoted to physics analysis. The successful candidate must have a Ph.D. in physics or closely related field, and should have strong C++ programming skills and experience in experimental relativistic heavy ion physics. Depending on the experience and desires of the candidate, he/she may spend a significant fraction of time at Brookhaven. In a collaboration such as STAR, self-motivation is an important consideration. Our UCD Relativistic Heavy Ion Group currently consists of four faculty, two postdoctoral researchers, three graduate students and five undergraduate students. Interested candidates should send an application consisting of a curriculum vitae, a description of research experience and interest and the names of three references to Professor Daniel Cebra, Department of Physics, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, or via E-mail to cebra@physics.ucdavis.edu. This university is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer and encourages all qualified candidates to apply.

Max-Planck-Institut fuer Physik, Muenchen: Postdoctoral Position

Max-Planck-Institut fuer Physik, Muenchen, offers the postdoc-position of an Experimental Physicist (Ph.D.) with experience in particle physics and in particular in data processing. The applicant is expected to participate in running and evaluating the STAR heavy-ion experiment at RHIC, where our group contributes the two Forward Time Projection Chambers (FTPCs) with radial drift field. The contract will be initially for two years with the possibility of an extension. The place of work will be the Munich institute while longer stays at BNL are also expected. Applications, together with a curriculum vitae, a list of publications and the names of three references, should be sent to Prof. N. Schmitz, Max-Planck-Institut fuer Physik, Foehringer Ring 6, 80805 Muenchen, Germany. For more details you may also contact: V. Eckardt at BNL, phone: 631-344-3121 or E-mail: voe@mppmu.mpg.de.

Creighton University: Faculty and/or Staff

Creighton University anticipates an opening for a faculty and/or staff position. We seek candidates who enjoy working with students in an academic and research setting and communicate effectively in English. For more information, please contact Janet Seger by email (jseger@creighton.edu) or phone (402-280-4709).