Minutes of DRAGON meeting March 27, 2007

Present: PM, CD, DH (recorder), MT, CR, LB, DO, JDA

0. Minutes of the previous meeting were accepted without change.

1. Hardware
        o 22Na target (CR)
        It was planned to remove the 22Na target from the Isotope
        Collection Station in the Mass Sep. room, check its dimensions
        and put it in a storage tube under Ar for storage with the
        sources on the cyclotron roof.  However, the nuclear ventilation
        system (or maybe only the fan sensor) failed this morning and
        the planned removal has been delayed.  It will be done after
        the meeting, if the ISAC problems get sorted out.

        o Power bump (DH) 
        The turbo pump of the Final slit box was tripped off by a
        power bump on Saturday, but ion pumps of the electrostatic
        dipoles recovered.  In 48 hours the pressure in the slit box
        rose to 0.4 Torr.  Pumpdown to ~5e-6 was quite quick but it
        took overnight pumping to get back down to ~6e-7 Torr.

2. Vibrating wire test  (DH,PM)
        The "vibrating wire" method for finding the magnetic centres
        of quadrupoles has been tested on the bench.  Technique is to
        pass alternating current through a thin wire which is kept at
        constant tension.  The driving force due to the wire being in
        a magnetic field can excite resonant transverse motion of the
        wire if the frequency of the AC matches a harmonic of the wire.
        Test was successful and indicates that we should be able to
        find the magnetic centre of a quad to better than 20um.
        Attachment to the minutes is the ppt presentation that DH would
        have made if his laptop had not suffered an epileptic fit.

3. REA
        o 22Na  TRIUMF/UW chamber design (CR)
        Design is almost complete and detailed drawings should be shipped
        to UW before the end of the week

        o TUDRAGON chamber (DH)
        Box is under construction in the machine shop and we should have
        it by the time requested (April 11) or sooner.  The lid will be
        shipped from Edinburgh next week.

4. Other
        o 20Ne(p,g) analysis  (MT)
        Making progress with ROOT cuts.  Not ready to present results yet.