Commissioning and running of sPHENIX

[Jamie Nagle <jamie.nagle AT colorado.edu>]

Hello sPHENIX Collaboration,

sPHENIX is now starting "Cryo-Week #2" with  four-person shifts and the ring is fully cold.    Megan Connors is the new Period  Coordinator, pictured below, and an extra thank you to the outgoing Period Coordinator Rosi Reed!    Also, welcome to the new shift crew pictured below.   

This week  has had some good progress, and also some steps forward, then steps backwards.     On the accelerator side, this is a slow startup to getting collisions.   There is some strange behavior in a blue main quad power supply that they need to understand  before RHIC  can really run.   Just yesterday, they observed the same strange behavior in the yellow main quad power supply.    There was also an issue with the injection kicker, which may now be resolved.    The Optically Pumped Polarized Ion Source (OPPIS) was having problems, but now appears to be working well.   They are at least 3 days behind the optimistic schedule and might get into collisions this weekend.     

The sPHENIX magnet was ramped to full current and then shortly after there was a valve problem - which  is not inside the magnet, but rather up on the top level platform (pictured below).     That region  had to be warmed up, the repair was completed this morning, and we hope to be cold tomorrow with a ramp up following.     The GL1, EMCal, HCal,  sEPD, ZDC/SMD,  MBD have been running "relatively" smoothly at 15 kHz with random triggers.   Mickey and  Dan have the MBD trigger setup ready to go when we have first collisions.   There is a fix in  the works to the GL1/GTM firmware for multi-event buffering, which we need to run at high livetime.    The MVTX has been running in full streaming mode with the other systems, just when experts are present.     The INTT has been running but has a data/triggering issue that Raul is examining.     The TPC has had good progress with a new round of resistor swaps and the gain balancing looks good with cosmics.    New firmware can now be downloaded via the Sort-out-Boxes and first tests of zero suppression are underway.     We need to keep  pushing to take advantage of this delay in collisions to work out the INTT, TPC readout and some DAQ issues.    

* Daily Shift Change Meetings (SCM) at 3:30 pm ET.    We have a daily google doc of notes and "plan of the day" linked from the run page.   The Zoom link for the SCM is also given at the top of the Run-2024 web page and repeated below.    

https://sphenix-intra.sdcc.bnl.gov/WWW/run/2024/

https://bnl.zoomgov.com/j/1614645041?pwd=bmE4STBRZk5tVVVUUC8zRnQxSlFyQT09

Lastly, people have done a great job signing up for shifts.    There are some swaps available on the "Trading Market" linked below, and there are shifts available in August-October!

https://www.sphenix.bnl.gov/ShiftSignupRun2/

Sincerely,

Jamie

sPHENIX Run Coordinator 2024

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|| James L. Nagle   
|| Professor of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder

|| EMAIL:   jamie.nagle AT colorado.edu
|| SKYPE:  jamie-nagle        
|| WEB:      http://spot.colorado.edu/~naglej 
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