12 GeV Upgrade
The contractor for the
Central Helium Liquefier building addition has
completed pouring concrete for the trench and is installing the
waterproofing, foundation drains and grating. Next
up is the floor slab, with formwork and
reinforcing steel
now being installed.
Installation of
the groundwater dewatering system for Hall D also has
started. Hall D requires an excavation depth
of approximately 20 feet below existing grade, and the
water table is approximately 5 feet below grade. The
dewatering system will temporarily depress
the water table to allow construction. Also, the
contractor is continuing
installation of utilities and a construction
entrance from Canon Boulevard.
Physics
In Hall B, the preparation of the third part of the eg1-dvcs run group
is well underway. The run group covers two highly rated experiments on
Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering and on the measurement of Target Spin
Asymmetries for pion production, repectively. Also, the
maintenance and repair effort of the drift chamber system has been
completed. Some additional maintenance is underway on the
time-of-flight system.
The target magnet and the polarized target cryostat are now cold and
check-out and testing by the Target Group is underway. One problem
occurred during cool down when the run valve froze up and a bypass
valve had to be used to allow operation of the system. The plan is to
fix this problem by either forcing the valve open mechanically, or if
this fails, by warming up the entire system. The latter may require up
to two weeks, but could still be completed before the start of the run.
Finally, the preparation of the eg6 run group, which immediately
follows the eg1-dvcs run, is also continuing. This run group serves two
highly rated experiments, one on the search for hybrid mesons, the
other on DVCS from the He-4 nucleus. Both experiments require the use
of
a pressurized He-4 gas target. A new radial TPC (RTCP) has been built
for the detection of the low energy recoiling alpha particle. The RTCP
is now being tested, and first signals from a radioactive source have
been observed.
In Hall C, final preparations for the hypernuclear experiment are
underway. All beamline and spectrometer magnets are
installed and controls for beamline elements are being established and
tested. The detectors are installed at the HKS and HES spectrometer
focal planes and are being tested.
Theory Center
Apart from their intrinsic attractions, supersymmetric extensions
of the Standard Model naturally suggest a candidate for dark matter,
one of the outstanding challenges of modern astrophysics. The
neutralino with mass of order 100 GeV is a natural candidate, and
it is crucial for dark matter searches that scientists have accurate
estimates
of its scattering cross section for hadronic matter. In a recent
cross-disciplinary paper <arXiv:0907.4177 [hep-ph]> involving
authors from RPI, ANL and JLab, it has been shown that lattice QCD
provide crucial information on the sigma commutators, which in turn
yields much more precise estimates of the neutralino-matter cross
sections. While the results are an order of magnitude smaller than
hitherto expected, a positive result would enable one to chose between
the existing models that are consistent with Wilkinson Microwave
Anistropy Probe (WMAP) data.The paper can be found at http://arXiv.org/abs/0907.4177.
Accelerator
The Accelerator Scheduled Down
continued with maintenance on
RF (radio frequency), magnets, vacuum system, control system, personnel
safety
system, fire safety system and more. CW beam was established with over
100uA to
the injector inline dump. On July 30, Virginia Power fixed the power
fluctuation problems experienced at the accelerator site. The
chilled
water to the north linac service building was interrupted, but fixed on
July 31.
Certification of the personnel safety system started.
Free-Electon Laser (FEL)
It was a spaghetti western week for the FEL. The Good: the FEL
had a
very
successful
demonstration of 5 MeV injection producing full efficiency above
1kW/mA and complete energy recovery for our Joint Technology Office
contract. The Bad: the FEL
had tuning problems on one cryomodule that took up half a day of
effort to resolve after fixing The Ugly: the FEL lost 2 1/2 days of
running
because of the discovery of an earlier
failure of an unnecessary interlock on a redundant enclosure protecting
staff from a non-hazard during an envisioned repair procedure that
never
occurs. It took 2 hours to fix the interlock. Repair of the
documentation continues.
JLab's Safety Numbers
21 Days since Last Recordable Accident (JLab record:
331)
329 Days since Last Lost Workday Accident (JLab record: 676)
JLab Calendar of Events
Aug. 19: Jefferson
Activities Group Luau
Aug. 19-21: GPUs
for
Lattice QCD Workshop
Aug. 27: Safety
Shoe Vendor onsite
Sept. 7: Labor Day holiday
Sept. 17: JSA's
Electronic
Commerce Vendor Show
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Environment, Safety, Health & Quality
Jefferson Lab began a Medical Event reporting emphasis campaign in
September 2008 with the objective of obtaining more and better safety
data. Various communication modes were used, including a Montage,
multiple weekly briefs inputs, and consistent reinforcement at both
large and small meetings across the site.
Reported medical
events at the lab rose almost 400 percent when compared year over
year. Feedback shows that the management emphasis campaign was the
primary
driver.You can see graphs on Insight.
One important point to remember is that although the number of reported
medical events has increased significantly, the lab's DART (Days Away,
Restricted or Transferred) and TRC (Total Recordable Cases) remain
extremely low. The FY09 DART is 0, while the TRC is 0.32, well below
the 0.65 PEMP contract goal.
ESH&Q has used this data to identify the most significant
improvement category - Hand and Finger Issues. These
issues comprise almost two-thirds of all reported medical events.
Identified
causes include equipment movements, handling cut sheet metal, pulling
cable and various other activities, usually without gloves or other
hand PPE. An ESH&Q liaison has been assigned to work with each
Division's
Safety Officer in identifying the specific work activities causing
these events, and ensuring the availability and use of proper hand
PPE. Additionally, the appropriate divisional work policies will
be
updated to ensure the information is available during work planning.
Announcements
Blood Drive A Success
The July 29th Red
Cross Blood Drive was very successful! A total of 71 people signed up
to
donate blood. The Red Cross still collected 54 pints of whole blood and
six donations of red
cells using the Double Red process, exceeding the lab's goal of 56
units! Occupational Medicine offers its thanks to everyone that
participated and volunteered in the blood drive.
Join the fun,
festivities at Aug. 19 JAG Luau
Plans are in
full swing for the lab'ssummer luau. The free
event, open to all lab employees and their families, users and
students, will
be from 3-6 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 19, on the lawn behind the Residence
Facility.
Refreshments
will include summer favorites: hamburgers, hotdogs, chips,
side dishes, cold beverages, and special treats like snow cones.
Activities
planned for the afternoon include a Hawaiian shirt contest,
slip & slide, bean bag toss, limbo, hula hoop contest and tug-o-war.
The luau is
geared toward families, but adults will be able to join in
on the fun as well.
The success of
JAG-sponsored events depends on everyone's
participation. Volunteering just
one hour
of your time to assist with set up, or help with an activity or event,
or clean
up, will go a long way toward making this event a success. JAG needs volunteers to help with a variety of
tasks. Please volunteer today.
More information about
the event and volunteer sign up are available
at: http://www.jlab.org/jag/index.html
TIAA-CREF
Retirement Counseling Sessions
The
summer/autumn dates for individual counseling sessions with Individual
Consultant Robert Jean are now posted. This is an opportunity to
discuss the
current status of your account, investment strategy and retirement
goals. The
dates are:
Wednesday,
Aug. 12
Thursday, Aug.13
Friday,
Sept. 25th
Friday, Nov.13
Thursday,
Dec.10.
The Individual
Counseling Session helps you plan your retirement by:
- Providing
objective advice and asset allocation based on your individual needs;
- Showing you
how you can get a personalized actionable plan;
- Reviewing your
retirement income options.
To
sign up for an appointment go to http://www.tiaa-cref.org and click on Meetings & Counseling and follow the menu. The
sessions will be held in VARC Room 42.
Back-to-School Sales Tax Holiday
Begins Aug. 7
Virginia's tax holiday will take place Aug. 7-9. During the three-day
period, many school supplies costing $20 or less, and clothing items
and
footwear costing $100 or less will be exempt from the state's 5 percent
sales tax. For the list of exempt items, visit www.tax.virginia.gov.
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