ISA meeting

Week 3, Jan. 13, 1998.


Status of the ring: This week we are still running D- using the duoplasmatron ion source.
The source is running very well, and the beam is accelerated to about 2 MeV.
The experiment is also going well. Electron cooling of the this negative beam has been seen for the first time, with a reduction in momentum spread of about a factor of 5. This small spread is needed in order to measure the intrinsic width of the so-called Feshbach resonance.
This run will continue until Monday morning.
A small leak in a window caused a stop yesterday, but the leak has been fixed, and the system was baked last night, so the run should be able to continue today.

The coming electron run will start on February 9, and things are getting ready for the changeover:
The new plunger is almost ready. A problem with the leak detector has delayed the project, but it should be OK soon. The aim is to test this new plunger before the start of the run.
The motor on SGM 1 is being mounted.
A turbopump on the XRM is getting a new bearing.
The changeover itself will take 3 days, according to KI. We hope to be able to use the last week of the 2-week shutdown to setup and tune the ring, such that we can have a good beam for the users when the run starts.

The microtron has had its RF-waveguide disassembled for a thorough cleaning. This went well, and system is now assembled again. We hope the microtron will be running again early next week.

The cooling water has given us some problems in the past, so it was decided to measure the temperature of the return water on all major ring elements on a regular basis, and write the results down in the logbook. This should enable us to determine when a problem is on its way before it trips a temperature interlock.

The new control system: TW is now working on the DAF-loader for the new system. The store/restore program has been much improved in the past weeks, and will be installed on all consoles. The first few days of the shutdown will be used by TW for various tests.

The ring status will be written on a web-page, which will be updated automatically every two minutes or so. This page will show ring current, lifetime, time for next injection etc.

13/1 1998 NH+SPM