SPIDER Testbeam meeting 26/05/2009 (DRAFT)

Present D. Cussans, J. Velthuis (Bristol), R. Gao, A. Nomerotski (Oxford), P. Dauncey 
(Imperial), N. Watson, J. Wilson (Birmingham), J. Crooks, M. Stanitzki, J. Strube, Z. 
Zhang (RAL)

Minutes: Marcel (with input from Jaap)

Repost on testbeam status: D. Cussans

Dave gab a summary on the current status of the DAQ, main issue is to enable the DAQ 
to handle multiple EUDET frames and one Fortis frame, as the Fortis is quite slow. Jaap 
made it clear, that this is the only way to get decent results due to virtues of having two 
rolling-shutter systems which are integrating over different time windows and are not 
really synced with a central clock and trigger. Jaap and Dave also summarized the 
expected beam conditions at CERN, which are roughly a 3 second spill with 10-15 
seconds quiet time in between. 
During the spill, beam is basically DC.
The EUDET telescope can handle 400 HZ framerate, but Fortis can run with a maximum 
of 30ms and using only a 128x128 pixel sub-array (which is 2x2 mm) instead of the full 
sensor, so this is the limiting factor. 
For alignment, Jaap plans to run with a 128x128 pixel array and synchronize with frame 
and event number. The plan is to take at least 1000 event sin that mode to determine 
where Fortis is compared to the EUDET Telescope Restframe
Dave also reported that there is now one Fortis Stack in Bristol and they’ll start getting 
data out soon. 

For the TPAC, Dave is still trying to get the firmware to compile and synthesize. Rui is 
willing to help out and Dave will be at CERN and could meet up with Matt

ACTION Dave: Get TPAC firmware to compile
ACTION Paul: Contact Matt to see if he is available next week

Jaap quickly summarized the testbeam situation; we can run 1 week as the principal user 
and one week as parasitic user. And our term starts on the 13th of August till the 27th of 
August. We can send up to 5 people there on EUDET money.
Andrei offered that Oxford could do the mechanical work required, if Bristol does 
provide the plans. What is required is a black box to hold Fortis and potentially TPAC.
People then gave their availability go for testbeam and Marcel will compile a table with 
everones availability to coordinate the effort a bit.
ACTION Marcel: Make such table
Jaap also said we’d need around £1500 for renting a car and he’d need a second Driver to 
go to CERN, Rui volunteered and said he’d be driving together with Jaap.
We also need to start booking Hostel rooms, since in August things usually get busy
Also non-EU citizens should check their visa requirements for Switzerland and France. 

Next item on the Agenda was TPAC status

We still plan to get the stack going as soon as possible, this requires the firmware to 
compile (see above)
Other items are to get the PMT inputs to work and also get a distributed CLOCK to work.
Dave, Rui and Paul plan to meet at Imperial as soon as the firmware compiles to start 
tweaking things. TPAC will really need an electron beam to make the stack really useful.

The ISIS status was quickly summarized by Andrei
ISIS2 test structures are working (slowly) and they plan to move to the main array soon. 
There might be the possibility to take ISIS as well to the test beam, but this remains to be 
seen. ISIS requires a cryostat which is incompatible with either Fortis or TPAC. As it is 
slow, Andrei plans to integrate over the entire spill and then sync with the EUDET 
telescope offline. He plans to run ISIS2 parasitically anyway
ACTION Andrei: Update us on the state of ISIS and of the likelihood of being ready at 
all in August
 

For the testbeam plan, the following was agreed. Fortis is the main driver for the 
Testbeam at CERN, TPAC and potentially ISIS2 are only the bonus program. This 
implies that Fortis determines the run plan, beam type, accesses, etc.
As TPAC would really benefit from electrons, the question was raised, how quickly the 
SPS can switch from pions to electrons
ACTION Jaap: investigate this with SPS

TPAC plans to do a second testbeam at DESY in the fall. This would be electrons only, 
and would clearly be needed to test TPAC in EM showers

Dave asked, if we ’d like to integrate TPAC with the EUDET DAQ, to scan a single 
TPAC in the EUDET telescope, Dave thinks that this can be done relatively easy and 
with little additional effort. 
ACTION Dave & Paul: Investigate the feasibility of doing this with the available 
resources