--- Minutes of the PS & SPS User Meeting --- # PS-SPS Users Meeting for Week 34 held on 20 August 2026 Coordinator this week : MMartin Jäkel Comment from our younger users: the vending machine should have more (refilled) real food (like sandwich and not just snacks) Hbeca se Ohey do not have a car and 'depent' on the available vending machine.  ## News from the PS & SPS Physics Coordinator M.R. Jäkel, P. Martinengo :::success Latest public schedule: [1.4.7](https://asm.app.cern.ch/coordination/published-schedule) (Draft STRAW and AIABE now confirmed, will be visible in 1.4.9) * Last regular weekly meeting: **3.Sep.2026** * Restart of weekly meetings: Mid 2028, few weeks before EA restarts * Expect next call for EA beam time: **Nov/Dec 2027 (for 2028 run)** * Expext call for EA & NA beam time: **Oct. 2028 (for 2029 run)** **Oct/Nov - Test Beam Day** : (Date to be announced) * Results and feedback from Run 3 * Plans for Run 4 test beam ::: **New Testbeam Welcome Website (BE-EA) https://testbeams.web.cern.ch** Please use it and give us feedback on: https://codimd.web.cern.ch/bJEzOaAcTS2B6UZY1wG9Sg. **CLEAR** will run during LS3 (electrons up to 220 MeV). If interested, contact Davide Gamba (Davide.Gamba@cern.ch). Further Infos : [CLEAR.CERN](https://clear.cern/?check_logged_in=1), [CLEAR Scientific Board Meeting](https://indico.cern.ch/event/1661754/) :::info **Physics Run 2026 Information :** * n-TOF p+ : -> 31.08.2026 * EA Physics p+ : -> 31.08.2026 (except IRRAD) * NA Physics p+ : -> 03.08.2026 * NA Pb Ions : 07.08.2026 -> 31.08.2026 * EA Physics PB Ion (T8) 19.08.2026 -> 31.08.2026 ::: :::warning **Latest Injector schedule** : 2026, [[v 1.7](https://edms.cern.ch/document/3180469/1.7)] ::: --- **Target intensities:** See via [ASM](https://asm.app.cern.ch/experimental-area/experiments) --- ### News from the Facilities Operations Meeting (FOM/TIOC) **Upcoming SPS MDs next weeks :** https://be-dep-ea.web.cern.ch/content/md-planning-north-area Dedicated SPS MDs - if not anounced differently - are taking place from 8:00 to 18:00 **Changes :** * Week 34 : HiRadMat test with low energy ions **Interventions :** * PS - Install and validate the prototype solid-state driver amplifier. 24.08 14h (3-4h) * LINAC3 - Daily Stripper Foil measurment. Weekdays 8h30 for 3 minutes (no beam) --- ## PS Machine Report (Rubén García Alía) - Smooth PS operation, with 93.3% Thu-to-Thu availability, dominated by LEIR downtime (~5h, QFT20 tripping) - 98.2% availability for protons - Some issues with KFA71 modules (gas leak in module 7, pulsing issues in modules 6, 8, 11) - Preparation of special HiRadMat beams (more about this in SPS entry) - 100e10 delivered to TOF last Thu - Multiple BGI measurements with different instrument settings across various beams - T8 end of protons and start of ions ## SPS Machine Report (Theodoros Argyropoulos) * **SPS availability:** 91.4% (since last Thursday). * Main issues: * injector complex * RF cavities * Activities * Pb-Ion beam (first time) & 26 GeV/c proton tests in HiRadMat on Monday, parallel to NA ion physics. * Long parallel MD today with LIU beam: 1 spill/SC until ~18:00. * Next week: * Dedicated MD on Wednesday (26/08) * Long parallel MD on Thurday (27/08) ## Safety (James Devine) We had some negative feedback about a team not wearing PPE in 157 over the weekend, it was the LHCb team in T10. Missing ISIEC for next week: Straw Tracker, DRD6 RADICAL. Reminders: * Obligatory to wear the PPE as defined in the safety video (https://indico.cern.ch/event/1645142/contributions/6916288/subcontributions/598017/attachments/32110) that was shared during the beamline user meeting and at the end of the ISIEC. Note that failure to do so is considered a professional fault (EDMS 3413229 (https://edms.cern.ch/document/3413229/LAST_RELEASED)). * Food and drinks are not allowed in radiologically classified areas. Use the dedicated coffee room outside the classified area instead (887/1-A92). * For fluorinated gases please check the HSE website (https://hse.cern/f-gas/temporary-experiments) and fill out the declaration form (even if purchased through CERN), follow the mandatory training (https://lms.cern.ch/ekp/servlet/ekp?PX=N&TEACHREVIEW=N&CID=EKP000044802&TX=FORMAT1&LANGUAGE_TAG=*ALL*&DECORATEPAGE=N) and also contact EP Safety. * For special requirements (e.g. flammable gases, lasers, bringing your own lifting table, etc.) contact us as soon as possible. ## TELMAX Main: AIABE (Please insert your name) ## TT2A Main: n_TOF (Giuseppe Tagliente) * EAR1 End of measurement of the 11B(𝑛,𝑛) and 11B(𝑛,𝑛′) reactions.  On 18/08, start of the measurement of the 7Li(𝑛,𝑛′𝑡) reaction using charged-particle detectors (SiNBa).   * EAR2: Commissioning of the STAR apparatus ongoing. Postponed at the 24/08, dosimetry detector test, as well as 𝛾 and 𝑛 background characterization. * NEAR: 141Ce activation  ## East Area Beam Status (Laurie Nevay) On call phone number: :phone: [67500](tel:+41227667500) T9/T10/T11T1: Good operation. ## East Area Users Tour de Table ### T8 Outgoing Main: IRRAD/CHARM (F. Ravotti / S. Fiore) For the **last week of the proton run 2026** (w33), the intensity delivered to T8 reached ~2.8E+16 p/w (well in line with the reference of 2.75E+16 p/w) and TID generated by the CHARM target >600 Gy/w (target was not removed on Monday since there was no access to the CHARM area on Wednesday). During the proton cooldown period on Wed. night (3am-8am) we carried out a ion MD on T8 for HEARTS.  Spill-to-spill beam quality (intensity / centering) was very much affected during the week. These instabilities could be related to the parallel MD activities to EAST_DMP (see pictures below). Between 8% and 14% of EAST spills during these last weeks of the year were sent to the DUMP (for MD) w.r.t. to the proton one sent to T8. *The weekly centering statistics are not avaibale this week: fiting script does not work properly when beam is unstable for long time.* **Total intensity spill-to-spill variations:**  **Good intensity, bad centering:**  **Low intensity spill:**  In IRRAD we completed the irradiations for all users (including the critical one for the EP-ESE bPOL components). Above 1400 samples (preliminary number) were exposed to the beam in 2026 and four experiments were refused due to lack of time/space in IRRAD or for insufficient preparation time (e.g. too late requests, not possible to prepare irradiation permit on time, etc.). After the Wednesday access, the HEARTS heavy-ions user run began. In CHARM, we completed all the scheduled user tests, with ATLAS-CAEN, SY-STI and BE-GM as last users for 2026 other that the weekly qualification tests the BE-CEM-EPR radiation test service. More than 80 radiation test were performed this year, from explorative part characterisation to full system qualification, including also passive irradiations on materials.  **Taken together, IRRAD and CHARM supported the validation of accelerator and experiment components, systems and subdetectors through complementary radiation fields and a bottom-up qualification approach - from materials and individual components to fully integrated systems. This brings to a close a particularly intense and successful 2026 run for both facilities, with more than 1,400 samples irradiated at IRRAD and more than 80 radiation tests performed at CHARM.** **The IRRAD and CHARM teams would like to express their gratitude to all the CERN groups whose continuous support made this programme possible throughout the year - BE-OP, HSE-RP, BE-EA, Physics Coordination, EP-SO, and many others. A lot was achieved together this year. See you in 2028!** ### T8 Main: HEARTS (A. Waets) The main HEARTS (High Energy Accelerators for Radiation Testing and Shielding) run has officially started yesterday afternoon. This marks the last dedicated HEARTS run before the LS and within the current EU project. We would like to explicitly thank the IRRAD, PS-OP, BE-CEM, SY-STI teams, HSE-RP support and all other groups involved for bringing us up to this point. In terms of operational readiness we have never been in better shape. This has already resulted in an excellent level of beam control and delivery to the HEARTS test station in IRRAD for the (scientific) users and R2E-internal validation tests we already accomodated up until this morning. The only **caveat is that we need to make sure there is sufficient beam current in the PS (values of 8.0 and higher on VISTAR)**, we noticed that this drifts a bit over time (due to e-cooler issues earlier?), otherwise the optimizations mentioned below are compromised. In terms of technical achievements we would like to highlight: - the finetuning of the beam intensity flux tags (Marc Delrieux, Denis Cotte and the rest of the PS-OP team), - the further optimization of the HEARTS dedicated WRAP application (Joe McCarthy) which now includes the implementation of automatization algorithms for the HV of the Multi-Wire Proportional Chamber readout to visualise the transverse profile, and spill time profile "bathtub" optimization. - The spill time profile optimization using RFKO "bathtub" functions (Adrian Menor de Onate, Michael Schenk) In particular, we are extremely happy and grateful that all these items were addressed in very limited and ad-hoc machine development sessions. **HEARTS dedicated WRAP application for beam monitoring and control**  **Slow-extracted heavy ion beam intensity as function of Radio-Frequency Knockout gain:**  **Spill time profile optimization**  Users: - 7 scientific teams, 40 + 5h (during MD) - 9 industrial teams, 116h - 3 CERN-internal teams (EP-ESE bPOL and SoC ASIC), 32h - 2 HEARTS-internal teams, 20h We aim for an "effecictive" beam time coverage of over 75%, with 25% buffer time and user changes. ### T9 Main: BL4S (Team AttoPion and Team PionIST) - We have finalized all the calibration runs and started to Physics runs! This is the configuration of our CALs.  We have completed runs with 3 GeV with 1 cm, 2 cm, 3 cm Tungsten, Graphite. Everything is going well, we are planning to change the target and energy and also the distance between cals to target. Data analysis and simulation studies are also ongoing in parallel to improve clustering algorithm.  ### T9 Incoming Main: RE47 (Please insert your name) ### T10 Main: LHCB (Loris Martinazzoli) Testbeam continuing until next Monday. Data taking and debugging continuing. Testing fast photodetectors (HRRPD) and SiPM at cyogenic temperature for the LHCb RICH with fast timing ### T10 Incoming Main: DRD6 RADICAL (Please insert your name) ### T11 Main: P371 (Vincent Verhoeven) Good operation. Only small problems with HV system. I found my paletts and pump in the north  ### T9 Incoming Parasitic: STRAW TRACKER RD (Temur Enik, Katerina Kuznetsova) - SHiP straw in T09 if fine with the main user (~50 cm along the beam line at the very downstream) - MM+Straw prototype in 157/R-H30 Needs: - small table in T09, gas (Ar/CO2), safety inspection the same time slot as main user - gas supply in 157/R-H30 (tb confirmed by Safety), safety inspection not earlier than Tuesday ## HiRadMat (P. Alexaki) Successfully completed the final HiRadMat beamtime before LS3, including the first ion beam extraction at the facility. Reached 1.8 × 10¹¹ charges/pulse and tested several devices. We extracted also 26 GeV/c proton beam and tested our software and the devices. Triggering issues resolved and normal operation restored. Many thanks to all collaborators for their support! ## North Area Beam Status (Laurie Nevay) On call number: :phone: [67500](tel:67500) **General**: On **Tuesday 25th** August and **Friday 28th** August, a high-intensity run will take place in H8 for NA60+. Access to the Salève side corridor (both first floor and ground floor) will be blocked beyond the central bridge, and the central corridor will be blocked beyond the access door for PPE134 (H4). Please follow the directions from RP; for any questions before or during please contact Maarten (maarten.van.dijk@cern.ch or :phone: [166972](tel:+41754116972)).  **H2**: No beam **H4**: Good operation. We managed to change the optic to still have good quality ions beam without Q2. **H8**: Good operation, many files made for LHCb, ready for operation with NA60+. ## North Area Users Tour de Table ### H4 Outgoing Main: HL ZDC (Brian Cole, Riccardo Longo) The joint ATLAS+CMS HL-ZDC (High Luminosity LHC Zero Degree Calorimeter) team had another highly succcessful test beam, this time using Pb ions. - We would like to start by thanking the technical teams, especially the rigging, beam instrumentation and survey teams who responded to multiple requests for technical help and chages in our setup. - We also thank Nikos and Maarten for the help in dealing with sudden changes in beam intensity, radiation alarms, magnets fluctuations etc. - And thanks to the FLUKA team (Lena, Luigi, Francesco) for their simulations, that were critical to optimize our setup. Our program evisioned: - fragmenting the Pb ions via electromagnetic dissociation (EMD) using a Pb target - bending the remaining Pb beam and charged particles away from the HL-ZDC detector using Goliath - allowing the detector to measure primarily neutrons - what ZDCs will mainly measure in heavy ion collisions at the HL-LHC. - tagging protons emitted in EMD events with a dedicated scintillator Our setup included: - XCET beam line Cherenkov - Fused silica rod-based trigger "cross"  - 2 mm Pb target(s) (we used 0, 1, 2 targets) - Proton tagger scintillator paddle - HL-ZDC calorimeter - Run 3 ATLAS ZDC to provide calibration  After taking high-statistics data in this configuration with both the HL-ZDC and Run 3 ATLAS ZDC, we felt that it would be very helpful to have an measurement of the energy in particles measured by the proton tagger. - We requested and received approval to move the ATLAS ZDC behind the proton tagger. - The move took place Monday 1:30 PM - The result   We saw higher than expected rates for particles in HL-ZDC and the proton tagger with no target, so we took many no-target runs and runs using only the incoming beam trigger (Cherenkov+Cross) so we can properly normalize and subtract the background. - In total we collected: - 60 million events with the initial setup - 61 million events with the modified setup (mostly with Cherenkov + trigger cross only) Some results/observations: - We saw quite clean Pb 82+ distribution on the XCET  - Distributions of HL ZDC energy (ADC units) (with no offline event selection)  - zoomed into low-energy region where we see a clean 1 neutron peak  - Note: target out subtraction goes negative in region dominated by noise -- noise will be reduced in offline analysis - Correlation between HL-ZDC energy (ADC units) and proton tagger amplitude  - Energy detected in fragments behind proton tagger versus proton tagger pulse amplitude  - Approximately linear dependence -- which indicates that the tagger is truly seeing protons emitted in Pb fragmentation processes Yesterday, deinstallation was done by 9:45 AM, thanks to the craning teams for their help. Our equipment is stored in 887/R-273. All but the detector should be moved by Friday or Monday. The detectors will be transported next Friday, Aug 28th. Michael is informed about this plan. In summary: the combination of the hadron test beam in July and the Pb ion test beam will provide a complete evaluation of the peformance of the HL ZDC as implemented in the pre-production detector. - Initial results from both test beams are highly positive, but much work remains to be done to analyze data and evaluate performance - Data from both test beams will appear in a paper planned for end of the year - We plan to be back in 2028/2029 (with 4 detectors then!) ### H4 Main: BI RADHARDPM (Robert Garbrecht Larsen) 3 straw planes were succesfully installed Wednesday morning, ready for safety inspection at 10:00, which went smoothly. Previous user was fast in uninstalling, so we could turn on the beam right after the safety inspection. Troubleshooting the setup and especially the automatic scanning of the quad took some time, but everything was running smoothly at 3pm. Beam was down in the evening, but still managed to get some data overnight. First quadrupole scan:  Uninstalled Thursday morning. ### H4 Parasitic BI Readout Board Development (Mark McLean) Tested scintillators, FISCs and Delay Wire Chamber with ions. Reasonable agreement for the scintillators between old and new readouts.  FISC fast scan profiles were pretty poor, but it turns out that the spill has significant temporal structure so this should have been expected. FISC profile:  Longitudinal spill profile as measured by a scintillator (~9s, 50ms/sample):  Ran slow FISC scans through the night, results to be analysed. Did some tests on XDWC and obtained a slightly "lumpy" profile. To be investigated.  Made some Pulse Height Analysis scans on the scintillator. The results seem repeatable, maybe they are fragments on the left and the lead ions on the right?  Will keep the scintillator signals branched to old and new readouts and conduct more PHA tests on them. The FISCs and XDWC are again connected to the old readout now. It would be helpful to keep the XDWC in beam so I can further investigate the "lumpy" profile. ### H4 Main: RE44 HERD (Junjing Wang, Ming Xu) During this week, we carried out off-beam-area preparations and functional tests of the detector and electronics. The setup has been moved into PPE134 this morning, and the installation is now ongoing. We aim to complete the installation and proceed with the safety inspection this afternoon. Beam request: fragment beam, A/Z = 2.2, 1k particles/spill as the first configuration.  ### H8 Outgoing Main: RE7 GAMMA MEV (Roberta Pillera, Nicola Mazziotta) We had a very successful beam test, with a good beam and very few beam down times. We completed the majority of our measurement goals. Thank to all CERN staff people for the help and support. The handover with the next user's team, that required stringent time constraints, has been smooth thanks to the timely coordination with Loris. * We have taken data with the three beam files prepared by Maarten, besides the A/Z=2.0 (most of the data taking) we used the A/Z=1 beam to have a proton reference run and the A/Z=2.2. The last one hase been a bit tricky to setup due to its larger beam size with respect to our veto hole.   * We started our run with a problem on the the main daq, hence we had to switch on the secondary daq line, in which the high-Z SiPM arrays were not readout. We were not able to solve the problem sw, so we opened the tray and exchanged two mezzanines in order to read them out. The operation has been successfull and allowed us to take the last night of runs completing our measurements goals of the 3 subsystems of ZIRE. We gathered some very important information on the performance of the detectors that is allowing us to make some adjustments for the assembly of the flight model that is starting right after the end of the summer break in Italy. The delivery of the payload is foreseen at the beginning of next year.   Notes on the operation. There were two radiation alarms due to the H4 line that triggered also H8. The noise of the AC system in the control room is so loud that we did not hear them right away, but only after some time when opening the door. We opened a ticket to reduce the noise but it was not possible with the current system. The ZIRE detector contains LYSO that is naturally radioactive and is now classified as radioactive in the TREC system. We are proceeding to a gamma spectrum measurement with RP to declassify it and ship it back with standard shipping. Thanks a lot to the RP team for the help in the procedure. The Team  ### H8 Main: LHCB (Loris Martinazzoli) Installation went smooth on Monday morning. Testing of the VELO module proceeding. Moved to higher A/Z and now continuing the destructive study. Planning to go to pure Pb beam (no target) for the final part of the testbeam. RP scheduled for tomorrow at 10:00. Craning the material out of the area as soon as possible.

Thanks a lot to the infrastructure and Maarten for the huge support. Testing of the VELO module proceeding. Moved to higher A/Z and now continuing the destructive study. Planning to go to pure Pb beam (no target) for the final part of the testbeam. RP scheduled for tomorrow at 10:00. Craning the material out of the area as soon as possible.

Thanks a lot to the infrastructure and Maarten for the huge support. ### H8 No Beam: STRAW TRACKER RD (Please insert your name) ### H8 Incoming Main: NA60+/DiCE (Enrico Scomparin, Sasha Milov) Install starting tomorrow (Friday) morning, safety visit at 4PM. Two DESY tables needed, requested beginning July via Maarten/Sylvain  Planning meeting with Maarten earlier today - Get 150 AGeV beam late afternoon Friday - Until Monday: focus scan, study of spill substructure, MWPC prototype tests - Tuesday: high intensity exercise (10^7/spill), with guidance from Maarten and assistance of RP - Wednesday: energy change to 40 AGeV, hope to get usable beam some time on Thursday - Friday: high intensity exercise (10^7/spill) - Until Monday: further prototype tests --- ## AoB --- _Minutes by the respective speakers, edited by the Physics Coordination_