DRAGON MEETING  10:30am Board Room
D.H. presiding

present: ML, DH, DFOT, GR, LB, JS, PM, AO, DG, MT, MMP

1. Minutes last week approved

2.  Facility Report

   * DH states that DRAGON performing well
   * later, DO trying to put in 2nd elastic monitor (across from JDA)
     -  not sure how it was done, will need to take first apart (?) to 
        find out 
   * PM promises to replace J-type thermocouple to measure gas target temp.
     -  DO offers to help

3. 12C+12C Experiment
 
   * 1.01 meV/u  data taking going well
     -  mostly 2 gamma cascade
     -  much like GEANT simulation  (too close ?)
     -  now going to 1.15 MeV/u  til Monday

   * GEANT study
     - suggests 20 MeV gammas DON'T make pairs ~1/2 the time
       o  odd, since GEANT handles EM stuff well
     - MT suggests that many things being looked at that could solve issue

4. Tentative plans for 12C(a,g)

   * run starts about March 26 (or so)
   *LB wants to start at 1.76 MeV/u  
     -  1- resonance, throwing gammas into 90deg
   * 17 msr opening angle means everything should be accepted
   * want high stats
     - want to try and reproduce yields by getting same answer from 
       consecutive runs, after mistuning and retuning, etc
       o  speculation from previous runs was energy drift
   *  elastic monitor should help with this.  wasn't working for
        previous run 
      - pointed out that getting monitors working couldbe a major effort
        DH states that maybe detector doesn't like working in He gas 
      - discussion about how to get it to work, what Joel did in past, etc...
      - big development effort, but needs to be in situ with beam to study
        o seems to work well with sources
      - DH suggests that we devote several days to the EM problem

   * LB suggests that we can ask Laxdal to go to 1.83, then we should go 
     back to 1.73 for reproducibility, then even lower
     - 1.63 MeV/u there is a 0+ resonance, 
     - 1.45       there is the "well known" 2+ resonance 
     - if there is time, go even lower 'where the physics is'
       o  noone but LB seems to think there will be time ...
       
5.  AO reports on Catania detector study

   * claims that 'things were confusing'
   * measurements with alphas looked OK way back onto test bench
     -  then it stopped on one side 'for no obvious reason'
     -  later on, after testing ood side, 'bad' side starts working again
        o but then stopped taking bias (should take 15V) once put into beam
        o etc. etc.
   -> AO no longer trusts previous results.  Not sure what is going on
     -  hasn't yet contacted Catania
   * AO plans to figure out what is going on before approaching Catania
   * AO appealed for help.  Pointed out that there is no 'drop dead date'

6.  ML showed MCP results

   * showed 21Ne(p,g) at 268.9 KeV/u  timing spectrum: 
     -  singles and gamma coincidence  (see attachment) well separated.
   * also showed MCP-RF timing spectrum as a function of low-beta 
     buncher voltage: attenuated beam (attachment)
     - optimal voltage at this energy = 90V
       o  1.7ns width, NOT corrected for individual strip variations
     - Laxdal was pleased to have this data., since there is a wide timing
       variation with voltage
   * showed similar timing spectrum for MCP-DSSD timing  (attachment) 
     - 1.7ns width for single strip
     - good leaky beam-recoil separation
   * energy separation also pretty good
     - BUT, for some reason Et^2 plot doesn't show good separation
       (attachment)
       o odd, since E and t individually show good beam-recoil separation
       o ML suggests that pulse-height defect could be an issue
       o DH and LB point out that timing offsets (?) could be problematic
     -> 2D plot of  E vs t^2 would be helpful  

7  Meeting ends 11:30