Run Coordinator report: Spring 2018 r9

Run coordinator report, March 7th-March 14th. Richard Jones

The 2018 spring run was suspended on Monday, March 5 when the failure of a transformer cut power to the central helium liquifier CHL-1. Throughout the week of March 5, the accelerator and facilities teams worked to understand the problem and plan the repairs. By the end of the week, it was clear that regular operations in the 4 halls would not resume until the end of month, tentatively scheduled for March 28. As a result, shifts were cancelled from March 5 evening through March 24. On Friday, March 9 the GlueX solenoid was ramped down, the process continuing overnight and completing on Saturday. The liquid hydrogen target was emptied and the sweep magnet, pair spectrometer, and tagger magnets were turned off. Even though we ended up taking no data during my week as Run Coordinator, I continued in my role as RC, attending the daily 8:00 meetings in the MCC, and the 1:30 meetings on March 7 and March 14. No weekly reports were requested from the halls at the March 14 meeting, as there was very little to report on.

During the down time, all data acquisition crates and detector voltages were left on, and cosmic triggers were collected. As soon as the solenoid ramp-down had started, Hall D was changed from Controlled to Restricted Access. The team working on the wire chambers for the Pion Polarizability experiment took advantage of the downtime to study sources of electronic noise in their readout. The Compton calorimeter prototype was also installed downstream of the GlueX detectors to be tested as soon as beam is restored.