12 GeV Upgrade

The request for Best-and-Final Offers (BAFO) for the klystron fabrication contract has been issued. Discussions are underway with the potential vendors for the new quadrupoles and four-meter dipoles to be used for electron beam transport. Discussions are also underway with the potential vendors for the 4 Kelvin coldbox for the 12 GeV cryogenics plant. The Request-for-Information was issued for the large magnet power supplies for upgrading the electron beam transport system; responses have been positive. An engineering test unit for the 70 Amp power supply was evaluated and found to meet the performance requirements; units like this one will be used to power septa in the electron beam extraction system.

Accelerator

In Hall A, experiment E06-014, Precision Measurements of the Neutron d2: Towards the Electric and Magnetic Color Polarizabilities, continues to take production data and is on schedule.

Hall B continues to run the eg1-dvcs run group using a 5.9 GeV longitudinally polarized electron beam and a dynamically polarized ammonia target. The ammonia target uses a 5 Tesla superconducting Helmholtz coil as a polarizing magnet. The experiment is currently in production data taking and enjoying good quality beam and a well-performing polarized target with polarization of the free hydrogen in the ammonia molecule of 70-80 percent. Data taking alternates between positive and negative target polarizations and with unpolarized carbon as a target.

The Spin Asymmetries of the Nucleon (SANE) experiment has been running smoothly in Hall C. It is expected that about 70 percent of the proposal statistics will be obtained for the five-pass transversely polarized target configuration. The experiment plans to return to the pass transverse configuration to improve statistics and then complete the run with the target polarized parallel to the beam. A readiness review for the upcoming Hall C hypernuclear experiment (E05-115) was conducted. The review raised no issues, but it raised a number of concerns that will be helpful to the collaboration, Hall C and the laboratory to successfully mount the experiment.

Accelerator

The accelerator performed reasonably well, with a continued low trip rate. Six hours were spent on Tuesday, Feb. 17, for beam studies and replacing one of the Hall A Moller power supplies. On Sunday, the injector dropped to restricted access and Ops was able to bring it back to beam permit. A few hours were spent on Monday to recover some radiofrequency cavities. Hall A was changed from pass 5 to pass 4. The Wien angle was changed to optimize the beam polarization for Halls B and C.

Free-Electron Laser (FEL)

This week, FEL staffers operated the machine with a longer pulse width and saw dramatically improved machine performance. Initial analysis of horizontal phase space tomography was also completed. The reconstructed phase space agrees well with simulations, and the extracted beam emittance agrees with measurements taken via a quadrupole scan. This work has been on our "should" list for a long time and provides important anchoring and confirmation of the validity of our simulations.

Theory Center

In a big step toward the ultimate aim of computing GlueX hybrid photoproduction rates, JLab lattice QCD group members have developed methods to extract photon current matrix elements between excited and exotic hadron states. These new techniques have been tested in the heavy-quark charmonium system, where they successfully reproduce a number of experimental radiative transition rates. The first QCD calculation (arXiv:0902.2241) of the exotic transition 1^-+ to 1^--γ indicates a large rate, one that if duplicated in the light-quark sector would signal copious production of exotics in GlueX.

JLab's Safety Numbers

51 Days since Last Recordable Accident (JLab record: 331)
168 Days since Last Lost Workday Accident (JLab record: 676)

JLab Calendar of Events

March 7: Virginia Regional Middle School Science Bowl
March 10: Science Series Lecture: The Science of Art Preservation
March 12:13: Spin Structure at Long Distance Workshop
March 25-27: International Workshop on Positrons at Jefferson Lab

Environment, Safety, Health & Quality

A cross-functional team met to conduct causal analyses on eight P-2 findings from a recent DOE Fall Protection Surveillance Assessment. P-2 is a finding that represents nonconformances, deviations and/or deficiencies in the implementation of requirements, procedures, standards and/or regulatory requirements. These fall protection findings dealt with various aspects of JLab's program, including scaffolding, ladders and chains, as well as how the items are managed and maintained. Causal analyses will be developed into actionable items to be included with the overall Corrective Action Plan being submitted by Facilities Management and Logistics.

Progress continues on corrective actions associated with the 2008 Health Safety and Security assessment. Five of the 32 corrective actions approved by DOE have been closed out thus far, including submission of the overall Corrective Action Plan and an ESH&Q Communications Benchmark Study. These items are being reviewed with the Thomas Jefferson Site Office in regularly scheduled meetings.

Upcoming assessments in March include Halls A and B Formality of Operations, which deals with Integrated Safety Management implementation in these specific areas, and Radiological Material Inventory. The Site Office will conduct these assessments; the JLab administrative contact is Bob Doane.

Computing and Networking Infrastructure (CNI)

E-mail Outage and Reconfiguration, Friday, March 20, 10 p.m. Through 3 p.m., Saturday, March 21
The IT division's CNI group will perform a major reconfiguration of users' e-mail, requiring an outage. No e-mail services will be available during the outage. E-mail sent to JLab addresses from offsite will queue and be delivered after the outage. Reading or sending e-mail from within JLab (including webmail and offsite computers configured to use JLab's e-mail servers) will fail during the outage.

The location of e-mail folders is being changed. Currently, JLab account holders have e-mail folders that are stored in their home directories (/home/user on Unix or J: drive on Windows). The reconfiguration will move these folders out of account holders' home directories and place them on a standalone, isolated file system. Account holders will not have direct access to this new file system. All access to these folders will require an IMAP mail client (i.e. Thunderbird, Pine configured as an IMAP client, etc). Further information about this reconfiguration will be available on the CNI group web page as the date approaches.

Windows Common User Environment (CUE) Software Refresh
The CNI group has released upgrades to Firefox, Thunderbird, Acrobat Reader plug-ins and Flash Player plug-ins for all Windows systems. The plug-ins will work with both Firefox and Internet Explorer. All Windows users should have seen a program upgrade being advertised in the lower right hand corner of your screen. To install the new programs immediately, you can click on the advertisement message, then select the Firefox, Thunderbird, and plug-ins selections, and press Install. If you choose not to install them at this time, the updated packages will be installed or you on our next maintenance day, Tuesday, Mar 17.

If you miss the advertisement and would like to install the software before the next maintenance day, you can go to the Control Panel->Add or Remove Programs->Add New Programs and select the updated packages. If you have any questions about installing the new software, you can contact the helpdesk at x7155 or helpdesk@jlab.org.

Announcements

2009 Benefits Open Enrollment Is Underway
Jefferson Lab’s 2009 Benefits Open Enrollment will be offered Feb. 18 - March 3, via the Employee Self Service System. All regular and term employees are eligible for medical, dental, health and dependent care flexible spending accounts, short-term disability and supplemental life insurance. For complete information on benefits options, visit the newly updated Human Resources Benefits webpage.


Come and Join the JAG Dog Training Club!
The JAG Dog Training Club is beginning training again in April. Come to the organizational meeting on Wednesday, March 18, at noon in VARC Room 72, the BEAMS Classroom. Whether you want to train in puppy kindergarten, basic manners, therapy dog or dog sports, the JAG Dog Training Club is the organization for you! Whether you're the owner of a new dog or puppy, or if you're a serious canine enthusiast or competitor, the club can help you gain the most from your companion dog. Pizza will be served at the meeting, so R.S.V.P. to Joyce Miller, x7163, or to Brian Kross, x7022.

Have News to Share?
Lab-significant events, announcements and notices can be sent to jlabinfo@jlab.org for consideration for posting in the JLab Weekly Briefs, in the OnTarget newsletter and on the Insight web portal. Additionally, if you have questions about the best method for distributing your message, or if you would like to have your message proofread before it is posted, contact Public Affairs through jlabinfo@jlab.org.