sPHENIX cold QCD topical group

[Itaru Nakagawa <itaru AT riken.jp>]

Hi John,

 We extracted SMD from ZDC compartments and tested on the shield block 
with a source. Turned out there are light leaks everywhere at the 
corners of SMD scintillators, light guide, and PMT. We patched with 
black tape here and there until the rate becomes reasonable cosmic rate 
and insensitive to the light condition. Then we confirmed the channel 
mapping is correct with our best guess with a 137Cs source. We also 
scanned the source position over the slats and confirmed every channels 
output good signal. The data may be useful to evaluate the gain matching 
constant in the offline analysis over the weekend. If the data looks 
good, we'll get SMD and 1st ZDC compartments back in position once we 
are happy with data we took.

 I am more inclined to move out the South SMD as well, since we found 
North SMD needed to be refurbished significantly to get the healthy 
signal out. We'll work on it early next week.

Regards,

-itaru