Commissioning and running of sPHENIX

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

Hello sPHENIX Collaboration,

sPHENIX is now starting "Cryo-Week #5". 

sPHENIX is making steady progress and in parallel so is C-AD.      The luminosity has increased by approximately a factor of three over the last week primarily due to improved vacuum from scrubbing.     

The sPHENIX magnet was turned on to the full field of 1.4 T on Friday.     The TPC/TPOT took data with field on from pp collisions and cosmics, and are currently analyzing that data for further optimization.     The TPC firmware is also moving forward with zero suppression and other tests critical for physics running.

For the other subsystems, the shift crew is regularly taking data with everyone else (GL1, MBD, EMCal, HCal, sEPD, ZDC/SMC, INTT, MVTX) at 12-13 kHz.    We need to bring on line the GL1/GTM Multi-Event Buffering (MEB) feature to achieve high livetime at these trigger rates.    There are stability issues to be worked out, and the INTT needs to be in one beam clock crossing and the MVTX needs a shorter strobe length for readout.   We are now doing test readouts with  the photon (8x8 EMCal non-overlapping)  and the jet (0.8 x 0.8 patch) triggers.    

We are having a big push to bring the Online Monitoring into "physics" running shape.      We are also having a fast turnaround on DST production.    sPHENIX needs more help with subsystems on examining low level data quality and data run-by-run integrity / QA.

A goal for sPHENIX is to have "Physics" running starting next week for all systems except TPC/TPOT.    That represents a lot of work that needs to get done this week, so focus on the tasks at hand.   We still have many challenges ahead.

Below are the sPHENIX slides shown at the weekly RHIC Coordination Meeting.

https://indico.bnl.gov/event/20768/contributions/91674/attachments/54530/93331/sPHENIXRunCoordinator_RHICCoordinationMeeting20240514.pdf

sPHENIX welcomes a new, intrepid shift crew (pictured below) and continuing Period Coordinator Tony Frawley (pictured below).    

Stay connected.    Call into the 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.   People on shift should plan on spending 100% of their time focussed on sPHENIX.    There is a key Owl Shift Leader position open for the week starting July 30, 2024  - that needs an experienced person.   There are some swaps available on the "Trading Market" and there are many shifts available in late August / September!    
If each institution can pick up one more shift late in the run that would really help.

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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