BTF 2014 draft schedule

January 13th, 2013

The BTF Committee meeting was held in Frascati, on December 18th, 2013. Attending: Prof. A. Di Ciaccio (Chairperson), G. Bencivenni, P. Branchini, G. Mazzitelli, P. Valente (ex officio). Invited: L. Foggetta

Agenda

Status of the facility and schedule 2013

Running expectations for 2014

Discussion of the Users requests

The general situation of the BTF running is very positive: many experimental groups carried on their tests and studies with good satisfaction also during 2013. Some weeks have suffered of very low efficiency and will be re-assigned in 2014.

The level of citations, scientific collaboration with the BTF staff or generic acknowledgement of the facility usage is improving, even though this aspect is very important and should always be kept under control. The experimental groups using the BTF must acknowledge the facility (and INFN, if coming from a different institution) in the appropriate way.

The start-up of the Linac is programmed for mid-January, so that regular shifts in the BTF can be allocated starting from the beginning of February. The Easter period it is not possible to guarantee full week shifts. In addition, two BTF technical weeks have to be foreseen during the approximately six months period, in order to guarantee maintenance/machine development at least once every 5/6 shifts. Finally, we foresee a summer shutdown during the month of August (probably longer than the DAFNE accelerator complex shutdown, but necessary for a number of programmed maintenance interventions).
Summarizing, we can divide the first part of year 2014, up the August shutdown, in two runs: before and after the Easter/25th April/1st May holidays.

The total beam time available for users is then of about 19-20 weeks in these six calendar months:

Run 1: February to Easter [weeks 6 to 15]

Easter [weeks 16 to 18]

Run 2: May to Summer shutdown [weeks 19 to 30]

Summer shutdown [weeks 31 to 35]

We have already a number of users requests for the second and last part of the year (Run 3, from September to December [weeks 36 to 51]). The detailed list of beam requests for this first call of year 2014, as inserted in the online form, is shown in the following table (btf-requests2014.pdf).

We can sum up the requests for the first part of the year (up to summer), for a total of 45 weeks, including neutron/high intensity tests and two BTF weeks:

Run 1: BTF startup [1 week] + Users requests [17 weeks] + Linac tests for long pulses [1 week] + neutron production tests [2 weeks] = 21 weeks

Run 2: Users requests [21 weeks] + BTF de-bunching tests [1 week] + BTF short stops [2 weeks] = 24 weeks

Due to the large over-booking, the Committee recommends to:

Postpone high-intensity and neutron production tests, also in consideration of the radio-protection and safety issues [2 weeks of BTF tests + 2 weeks of users]; we just keep one week of joint tests of n@BTF with PP@LPA (they plan to use the same target of n@BTF for tests at FLAME, so the test cannot be moved after summer)

Reduce the BTF maintenance/BTF weeks/Linac tests as much as possible (2 weeks out of 4); we just keep the two weeks for de-bunching and long pulse tests, necessary for specific beam requests in late 2014 and for the possible BTF upgrade.

Reduce or postpone some of the multi-shift requests.

The proposed schedule is then as in the following draft: http://www.lnf.infn.it/acceleratori/btf/php/schedule.php?year=2014&acc=1 (btf-draft2014.pdf)

Even squeezing the maintance and technical stops periods, we still have some "overflow" after summer 2014: (list of pending requests). Another Committee meeting will be held in Spring, in order to take into account possible Linac faults, problems or shift cancellations.

Important notice for the users

We warmly ask the users to inform us as soon as possible (btf@lnf.infn.it, btfsupport@lnf.infn.it) in the event of:

you are not able to come

you are not able to profit of all the assigned period

you are planning not to take data 24h/day

We recall that all participants to the test beam have to provide the documentation for the access formalities at LNF in advance (please, take into consideration that many periods are close to shutdown or vacation periods).

Please, consider that access for experimental activities should be granted also to LNF users/personnel not already authorized. All information is available at the link: http://www.lnf.infn.it/acceleratori/btf/access/