[Moller_intdet] summer students

[Michael Gericke]

Hi Roger,

I understand your concerns, and I am not pushing it in any particular way.
However, this was tabled a few years back by Dave, as a low cost potential
alternative and it deserves a closer look. It may or may not be worth
prototyping it, if the safety constraints make it too complicated or 
expensive,
but it should otherwise not be too hard to build a small prototype and just
see what happens.

In any case, for the moment I am treating this as another thing to 
investigate
until it is properly put to bed if it doesn't work, or until it is ruled 
out by majority
vote (or by some form of consensus). Your concerns are very valid, but 
all of them,
including linearity, required fields, and charge collection time depend 
on particular
design choices, which would need to be studied carefully to really 
exclude this
possibility.  Someone would have to really invest some time into 
studying this
option and if nobody does, then I suppose it is off the table automatically.

So, in short, the proposal for ion chambers is on the table and being 
responsible
for the integrating detector development coordination I feel compelled 
to take a
look at it!

Best Regards,

Michael



On 10/06/2011 2:15 PM, Roger D. Carlini wrote:
> Hi Michael:
>
> I am not sure what you would propose using an ion chamber for. If your 
> thinking about it as a possible replacement for the Quartz (Cherenkov) 
> detectors, then (forgetting about it being sensitive to particles 
> other than electrons) it must be a very low pressure (sub-atmospheric) 
> high voltage hydrogen gas ion chamber. Otherwise it will be way to 
> slow (collection time) for the a rapid helicity reversal PV experiment 
> and be very non-linear as well. Not to mention all the spallation 
> fragment noise issues, etc.
>
> Best Regards
>
> Roger
>
> On 6/10/11 2:48 PM, Michael Gericke wrote:
>> Hi Juliette,
>>
>> I want to have a phone call with Wim and KK to discuss the
>> possibility of applying for a small equipment grant through
>> NSERC this fall. If this goes ahead (and I don't see a reason
>> why  not) then Rob would be the one to write (with my help)
>> the grant proposal this summer.
>>
>> So what has to happen first this summer are a few
>> simulations for the geometries that KK and his group
>> now have in the CAD and the development of some
>> prototype assembly design; something that can be put
>> into the hall for testing when we have beam, without
>> disturbing the running experiment. In addition, since this
>> is a benchmarking exercise, I think it would be nice to
>> build a prototype ion chamber, just to see if the resolution
>> for GeV electrons is really that poor and to see how sensitive
>> they are to background. This is a little more complicated (as
>> Dave pointed out to me) since this involves building a pressure
>> vessel which has to satisfy the JLab used engineering code.
>> So someone would have to go talk to a JLab engineer about
>> that.
>>
>> The design and simulations can then be used in the proposal.
>>
>>
>> What we need for the proposal:
>>
>> 1) Purpose and goal:
>>        That one is easy: benchmark simulations and
>>         selection of detector material/geometry etc ...
>>
>> 2) Physics and working principle:
>>       This should be clear!
>>
>> 3) Time line:
>>        There is not much room to play with. If the proposal
>>        gets put in this fall and ends up being successful, then the
>>        money  would be available April 1st, 2012. I have some
>>        money (about 10k - 20k) available now to get started, which I 
>> would
>>        replace in April, if the grant is successful, but the major 
>> question
>>        is how expensive the quartz pieces will be and how long it would
>>        take to get them after the order is placed. The people I
>>        know of who might have an estimate of these are Dave Mack
>>        and Mark Pitt.
>>
>> 4) Cost estimates (with quotes):
>>       - Two quartz pieces for each geometry (how many are there ?)
>>       - Suitable PMTs and divider hardware (this may all be stuff 
>> that can
>>         be found at the lab already, but is should be in the proposal 
>> for
>>         completeness and because it is good to show that some of the
>>         costs are covered by other source ... leverage)
>>       - Any other hardware needed
>>       - DAQ: use a free qweak MD channel ?
>>
>> 5) Manpower
>>       - You
>>       - Rob
>>       - Students
>>         Summer students are fine, but it would be good if a Canadian
>>         graduate student was involved for HQP (training of highly 
>> qualified
>>         personnel accounting)  which increases the chances for grant 
>> success.
>>         I am thinking about Scott at some small fraction of his time.
>>
>> So, to answer your question Juliette, I would say it is clear that 
>> there is
>> work to be done this summer, but I am not sure it will be hardware work
>> (yet).
>>
>> If anyone has any ideas or suggestion, please let me know.
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10/06/2011 8:39 AM, Juliette Mammei wrote:
>>>   Hey guys,
>>>
>>> I am going to be mentoring at least one high school summer student.  I
>>> think that he will work on a simulation project for MOLLER, either for
>>> the main detectors specifically or looking at the photon backgrounds
>>> or something like that.
>>>
>>> There is another student who needs a mentor; is there a possibility to
>>> have her do some work on the prototype detector over the summer?  If
>>> so, then I am willing to handle the business side of things to mentor
>>> her as well, unless Rob wants to do it himself... I think it will be a
>>> good experience.
>>>
>>> Talk to you later,
>>>
>>> Juliette
>>
>>


-- 
Michael Gericke

Assistant Professor

University of Manitoba
Department of Physics
30A Sifton Road, 213 Allen Bldg.
Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, Canada

Tel.: 204 474 6203
Fax.: 204 474 7622