Beam Delivery Report

A daily (more or less) report on beam delivery at TRIUMF, and part of the Beam Delivery group's Guide for Experimenters.

15:41, 23 April 2009 (PDT)

The cyclotron is currently delivering ~100 µA to BL1A and ~50 µA to BL2C. BL2A is off; TM4 was transferred back to the ISAC hot cell earlier today, but the mass separator room is still open for TRILIS work. Once that's complete, BL2A will be ramped back up to 40 µA as scheduled.

Beam development and setup for the upcoming experiment at ISAC (S984) didn't get very far last night. Startup (following yesterday's maintenance) was delayed by problems with the nuclear ventilation system. As a result, BL2A tuning and target scans weren't finished until about 23:00. It was after midnight by the time that things were set up for Ag beam development at the ISAC yield station, and that had to be suspended this morning for the target module move. Development work, for beam delivery to S984 tonight, will continue once protons are restored. – Morton

16:12, 22 April 2009 (PDT)

Maintenance day is wrapping up. ISIS tuning is underway, and we're just waiting for a proton enable on BL2A. The plan is to restore the proton beam and deliver beam to BL1A, BL2C, and BL2A overnight (and until next week).

Tonight should see the development of laser-ionized silver beams at ISAC. Before that, a ²⁶Na signal at the ISAC yield station will be used as a diagnostic for a proton scan of the target. Setup to the next experiment (S984, a decay study of ^112,110Ag at the 8π) will take place tomorrow with the experiment scheduled to start tomorrow evening.

As part of today's maintenance activities, TM4 was transferred back to the east target station. Unfortunately, the RIB shutter on the module will not open. TM4 may have to be transferred back to the hot cell tomorrow (which will take several hours and affect our ability to get TM4 ready to start in two weeks as planned). A decision will be made by ~11:00 tomorrow. – Morton

16:14, 20 April 2009 (PDT)

Work is continuing to bring BL2C on-line. In the meantime, the cyclotron is continuing to deliver ~100 µA to BL1A and 40 µA to BL2A. This should continue until Wednesday's scheduled maintenance.

At ISAC, the TACTIC detector test finished yesterday at ~10:30; SuperNanogan development is now underway. On-line, TRINAT is continuing to take ^86mRb. They'll run until Wednesday morning and may not bother with ^90mRb at all.

We will be switching to ⁸³Rb for release measurements before protons go off Wednesday morning. TRINAT has agreed to give up the beam at 07:30 to accommodate that and to allow for BL2A to be taken off-line earlier than 08:30 if necessary. We would like to get an early start to the target hall work as there's a fair bit of it this week. – Morton

15:31, 17 April 2009 (PDT) – WEEKEND UPDATE

No real changes from yesterday – the cyclotron is still delivering 100 µA down BL1A and 40 µA down BL2A with BL2C off-line. Work is continuing to try to bring BL2C back on-line for the weekend. Things should run like this through the weekend.

TACTIC is back taking ¹²C from OLIS after venting to change what was in their target chamber earlier today. They'll run until Sunday morning, at which time SuperNanogan development is scheduled to start. ^86mRb is being delivered to TRINAT; they'll take either ^86mRb or ^90mRb until next Wednesday morning. – Morton

17:52, 16 April 2009 (PDT)

The cyclotron is running, delivering 100 µA to BL1A and 40 µA to BL2A. BL2C was getting ~50 µA earlier in the day as well, but is currently off-line because of problems with the target cooling water resistivity. That will be looked at tomorrow. Otherwise things should run much as they are (with BL2C back on-line) through to next week.

Stable beam from OLIS has been set up to TACTIC for detector tests. These will continue into the weekend. Yield measurements of Rb isotopes are currently underway in preparation for the upcoming TRINAT run; setup for that experiment will take place as soon as the yield measurements are finished. Once that's done, TRINAT will take beam (radioactive Rb isotopes) until next Wednesday's scheduled maintenance. – Morton

16:06, 15 April 2009 (PDT)

We had a late start to today's scheduled 24-hour maintenance so that TIGRESS could wrap up their measurements with ¹¹Be. Beam has been off since about 10:30 for an ISIS filament change. The cyclotron should be back up and running this evening. The plan is tune the machine, BL1A, and BL2C overnight then bring BL2A back online at 08:30 tomorrow morning, as scheduled.

On the ISAC side, TM4 was moved to the hot cell for a target change. OLIS was switched to ¹²C for TACTIC; ISAC Ops have been setting up the ISAC-I accelerators since. TACTIC is scheduled to get beam for six shifts starting tomorrow, but we're going to try to get beam tuned through their target chamber tonight. Tomorrow will be taken up with yield measurements of Rb isotopes in preparation for a TRINAT run (S1127). The experiment is scheduled to start Friday morning, but we've asked that they be ready to take RIB tomorrow night just in case. – Morton

18:35, 14 April 2009 (PDT)

BL1A startup didn't go as planned last night because of a problem with the ISIS slits. As a result, today was an impromptu maintenance day in the hopes of getting the things requiring vault access out of the way. We've restored 40 µA to ISAC and will run BL2A as the sole user overnight, then shut down for an ISIS filament change tomorrow morning. Protons may be available by midnight or so tomorrow; the plan is to work on BL1A and machine tuning until Thursday morning, then bring ISAC back online as scheduled.

At ISAC, stable beam is being tuned through the TIGRESS chamber while the low-energy section is scaled to 22.44 keV for ¹¹Be. We'll switch over to RIB this evening, then run ¹¹Be to TIGRESS overnight. There has been a request to switch to ²³Na just before the proton beam goes off tomorrow morning; ISAC Ops will coordinate this with TIGRESS and the Main Control Room. – Morton

22:33, 10 April 2009 (PDT) – EASTER WEEKEND UPDATE

PIF is finished for the time being, and the BL1A shielding blocks have been restored. Otherwise, everything is as it was yesterday. TIGRESS will continue to run at ISAC until Monday evening, at which point BL1A startup will begin.

For future reference: We probably won't issue updates on weekends and holidays unless something happens that would affect beam delivery. Current operating conditions can be inferred from the MCR and ISAC logs. – Morton

13:49, 9 April 2009 (PDT) – EASTER WEEKEND UPDATE

PIF is continuing at < 1µA while 40 µA go to ISAC for setup of the next experiment. Shielding blocks are still being replaced on BL1A with the goal of bringing beam into the Meson Hall Monday night. BL1A startup is scheduled to begin 20:30 Monday and continue during Tuesday's day shift. Meson Hall channel rates will be needed.

TIGRESS will take ¹⁰Be over the weekend (experiment S1209). The mass change and TRILIS setup are complete, with the beam parked on IMS:FC14. The accelerator tune to TIGRESS is still being worked on, but we should be able to switch over to RIB this afternoon. S1209 will continue until 20:30 Monday.

We're not scheduled to deliver RIB during BL1A startup, so BL2A will be limited to 20 µA overnight Monday. BL2A will go off completely by 07:00 Tuesday for Target Hall work. It should be available again by 14:30. – Morton

15:04, 8 April 2009 (PDT)

The cyclotron is currently delivering 40 µA to ISAC and < 1 µA to PIF. This will continue over the weekend. The BL1A shielding blocks are being put back in the hopes of bringing BL1A online Monday night.

At ISAC, ¹¹Be is still going to β-NMR. They'll run until tomorrow morning, at which point we'll start tuning ¹⁰Be for TIGRESS. Sophia and Marco are tuning ²⁰Ne through the ISAC-II linac to TIGRESS in preparation for the switch to RIB tomorrow. TIGRESS will run until BL1A startup on Monday evening. – Morton

22:29, 7 April 2009 (PDT)

In case you're wondering: We're trying to come up with a way to give an overview of the current and near-term state of beam delivery at the lab. The ISAC and MCR logs are great for record-keeping, but they're not well-suited to looks into the future. What we want to do is provide staff and experimenters with a sort of "weather report" for the next few days so that they know not only what's going on, but what we're hoping to accomplish from a beam delivery standpoint.

The format will change as we figure out what we actually need to post. In the meantime, feel free to forward comments. – Morton

21:56, 7 April 2009 (PDT)

Right now, the cyclotron is delivering 40 µA to ISAC and < 1 µA to PIF. There's no maintenance scheduled for tomorrow, so things should continue like this through the weekend.

At ISAC, ¹¹Be is being delivered to β-NMR for a polarizer test. Sophia is setting up the accelerators with ²⁰Ne for this weekend's TIGRESS ¹⁰Be run. Tomorrow should be more of the same, with stable beam tuning through the TIGRESS vacuum chamber in the afternoon or evening. We'll switch to delivering ¹⁰Be to TIGRESS on Thursday. – Morton