Pierre Auger Project

 

January & February 2004
 

Summary (photo album)

 

As of the end of March the Auger array has 350 tanks deployed and 250 with electronics recording data.Operation has been quite stable with 94.7% uptime since 1 January.There are also six fluorescence telescopes in operation.A large number of hybrid events and a few spectacular “stereo-hybrid” events have been recorded.

 
 

Although deployment has been going well, the failure of delivery of an RTV catalyst for PMT potting has temporarily halted detector assembly.An alternative source for the catalyst has been found and flow of potted tubes should begin again soon.The assembly and deployment of electronics kits is proceeding very well.The deployment of electronics is beginning to catch up with tank deployment.

 

Tanks continue to flow from Rotoplas and the first shipment of six tanks has been received from Formingplast.Even though these Formingplast tanks have been made during their learning phase and contain some flaws, we hope to deploy them.The latest Formingplast tank is reported to be excellent.The last procurement of liner laminate for the array has been successful.The fabrication and testing of liners is going well.

 

All components for the last two telescopes at Los Leones are in place for bays one and two at Los Leones.We expect to have these two telescopes operational for the April dark period.By May we hope to have Coihueco complete as well.The fluorescence building at Los Morados is progressing well with completion expected in July as planned.New software upgrades are underway on the FD systems.

 

In March the communications equipment at Los Morados was commissioned including the backbone microwave link to Los Leones.

 

Funding for fluorescence detectors is almost fully committed.Although the prospect for surface array funding in the long term seems good, these funds are very slow in coming.Unless more funding becomes available in the next few weeks the deployment of the surface array will have to stop and completion of the array delayed.In particular, orders need to be placed for resin for tanks and for the manufacture of the tanks. 

 
 

An International Finance Board Review was held on 19-21 March.The preliminary report of the review panel was quite positive.The presentations to the review panel may be found at: http://www.auger.org/admin/Friday_19_March_2004-Agenda.html.The preliminary report may be found at: http://www.auger.org/admin/Preliminary_Report_of_Review_Panel.pdf.

 

Note that links to the Finance Board Review presentations are included in place of some reports.

 

WBS 1.1 Fluorescence Detector (Jonny Kleinfeller – Karlesruhe)

 

Four telescopes at Los Leones (3, 4, 5, 6) and 2 telescopes at Coihueco (20, 21) are operational. Only telescope 4 at Los Leones and telescope 21 at Coihueco are equipped with corrector ring lenses. The other telescopes have a diaphragm of 1.7m diameter fitted.

 

The aperture boxes and shutters in the remaining 2 bays of Los Leones (1, 2) and the remaining 4 bays of Coihueco (19, 22, 23, 24) are installed, but the shutters are not yet integrated into slow control. Filters, corrector ring frames, failsafe curtains, and mirrors are mounted at Los Leones for telescope 1 and 2. The cameras for these telescopes are fully assembled, connected to the electronics crates and tested. Alignment, reconnection to HV/LV and commissioning is pending.

 

The missing corrector ring frames of telescope 3, 5 and 6 are assembled and will be mounted this week.

 

At Coihueco filters are mounted for telescope 22 and 23, a corrector ring frame and a failsafe curtain are mounted for telescope 23. Telescope 19, 20 and 24 will not have corrector ring frames (and lenses) before the next shipment from Karlsruhe arrives (August 2004).

 

Work at Los Leones and Coihueco is progressing according to schedule, completion of Los Leones in April, of Coihueco in May.

 

The recent shift was a bit messy, mainly bugs in the software in connection with the FireWire upgrade of the mirror readout and calibration. Some of these bugs have been fixed.

 

These problems are partly unavoidable, the final tests and integration of the software take place at the FD sites. This should have been scheduled for the full moon period, but the meetings are always scheduled for the new moon period, i. e. the experts are here at that time.

 

WBS 1.2 Fluorescence Detector Electronics (Daniel Camin – Milano)

 

WBS 1.2 FD digital electronics and readout systems (Matthias Kleifges - IPE)

 

Installation in November 03

 

We have reached the “4+2” configuration, i.e. since the last meeting 4 telescopes in Los Leones and 2 telescopes in Coihueco are operable.

 

Transition to FireWire interface in software and hardware till January 2004

 
 

In preparation for the transition of the microEnable to the FireWire (IEEE 1394) interface the software of the PBUS layer was upgraded and is now available as shared library. 

 

We have implemented the block transfer mode for FireWire in hardware near software as well as in the firmware of the SIB FireWire board. The RPM package, which holds the installed software for of the EyePC, was updated to hold all necessary FireWire software.

 

Finally, Sascha replaced the microEnable with the FireWire SIB modules and established the FireWire link during his stay in January. There were no changes to the DAQ software required, except a new link with the FireWire library version. All 6 telescopes (4 in LL, 2 in Co) were updated and worked from the beginning.

 

Improvements in software and firmware upgrades (“debugging”)

 

Several improvements have been added to the Feshell software as part of regular software maintenance. This includes also the implementation of new features in all concerned software parts:
 
 

a.Hardware deadtime counters are now supported in the hardware library.
 

b.We performed tests with the OPC toolkit to install the connection for data exchange between the slow control und the DAQ using the OPC protocol.
 

c.We integrated the access to the CalibrationPC from the DAQ in order to simplify the recording calibration data and the associated procedure. Future installation in Los Leones and tests are coming soon.

 

The crew in Malargüe has reported problems with telescope #6 which were related with a bug in the FLT and SLT firmware, respectively. The addressing of non-existing FLT memory addresses was not handled correctly and led to blown fuse on the SLT board. A second problem concerns the synchronisation of control signals from the GPS clock on the SLT. Both problems are solved with a new firmware release, which will be installed during in March 04.

 

An updated release of the GPS clock firmware will be installed in March 04. The release (in combination with hardware library) will support the capture inputs of the clock and realize the new timing specification for the LIDAR signals. As the definition of some hardware registers has been changed, also a new GPS servers release must be loaded. 

 

Calibration procedure with LED

 

Sascha has established the calibration procedure for all telescopes in Los Leones and telescope #20 in Coihueco (the fibre is missing for telescope #19). He has measured the electronic gain, the bandwidth and the relative optical gain for all electronic channels of those telescopes. There are 2 LCU (=LED calibration unit) on site, the one foreseen for Coihueco has to be upgraded with a new boot ROM. 

 

Production status

 

IPE has procured or produced the full amount of components under our responsibility, except the FLTs.About 380 (of 520) FLT are produced, but not all are already tested. Our next shipment will bring 2 more systems for the completion of Coihueco in May 04. 

 

WBS 2.1 SD Site (Ingo Allekote – Instituto Balseiro) 

 

Eighty one tanks were delivered in this period, all from Rotoplas. Deliveries stopped for the last week of February because Rotoplas had difficultie with their trucks. They did, however, demonstrate their capability to produce 18 tanks per week when needed, although their present truck capacity limits them to shipment of 12 tanks per week. The manufacture of these tanks is supported by CONACyT/Michoacan and UNAM in Mexico.

 

The Formingplast company has been developing the ability to manufacture our tanks as well and has demonstrated the ability to make satisfactory tanks. Production of tanks by this company can now be carried out as contracts are placed. The development of this capability has been

supported by Argentina.

 

A trucking company was contacted and they have developed the ability to transport our tanks as well. They will transport tanks from Formingplast, which does not have transport capability of its own. They can also transport tanks from Rotoplas if necessary to meet deployment schedules.

 

A shipment of 80 tons of resin provided by CONACyT, Mexico, arrived in Buenos Aires. It was received by and stored at the Tandar Laboratory, where the inventories of resin are managed. It is being shipped to the molders as needed to manufacture tanks. An additional 206 tons of resin has been manufactured, paid for by the US, and has been shipped to Buenos Aires for March delivery.

 

Parts and supplies are continually shipped to Malargue from collaborating institutions. 1024 solar panels arrived from Spain, batteries arrive from Brazil on a just-in-time basis (based on the immediate need, since we don't want the batteries to age more than a few seeks before deployment.) Battery boxes are made by Formingplast. Polyethylene sheets for hatchcovers were shipped from the US. These sheets can now be made into hatchcovers in Malargüe using a router, an easier process than using a lathe and one on which more suppliers can bid.
 
 

110 liners produced at the facility in UTN were sent to Malargüe in this period. Liner fabrication has restarted, although the 9 rolls of laminate shipped by air arrived unpacked and some of them may be contaminated. Samples are being studied with electron microscopy to assess the level of contamination. Barbara Civit left her position as head of the liner production plant and from April 1st she is going to be replaced by Marcelo Murgo from UTN, who has already been trained by Barbara Civit.

 

A total of 82 surface detectors were deployed in the field and 79 were filled with water during January-February 2004. Due to the extraordinarily dry summer, detectors could be deployed in areas of normally difficult access, such as the swampy fields next to the Los Leones fluorescence detectors.

 

The water plant operated during the whole period without difficulties, producing pure water at a rate of 1750 liters per hour.

 

Due to constructive problems with the container frame which was supposed to hold the 3rd water transport tank, it was decided to mount the tank directly on the trailer. The trailer has been completed and delivered by Petinari to Equipos y Proyectos, who are constructing the tank and started to mount it on the trailer.

 

During this period, some problems with landowners had to be dealt with. To the southwest of the array, near Malargüe city, one landowner sold his land, others had some objections to tank deployment due to eventual interference with intensive farming plans. As these problems affected tank locations next to the boundary of the full array, these problems do not cause holes in the array but a slight redefinition of the array border.

 

A number of failures in battery temperature sensors have been detected in the field and are under study.

 

WBS 2.2. Surface Detector Electronics (Tiina Suomijarvi – IPN Orsay)
 

WBS 3.0 Comms (Paul Clark – Leeds)

   

WBS 5.0 DPA/Offline- (Stefano Argiro – INFN)

 
 

WBS 7.0 Project Management
 

 

The following is the preliminary report of The Auger Finance Board Review 

 

Review Report

 

Review Panel Participants

 

•Jean-Jacques Aubert 

•Pietro Dalpiaz 

•Gabrijel Kernel

•Alberto Pignotti

•Hank Sobel (Chair)

 

WBS 8.0 Education and Outreach (Greg Snow – University of Nebraska)

 

WBS 9.0 Observatory Operations(Xavier Bertou – University of Chicago)
 
 
 

Real data taking in stable mode started officially on January 1st. In January-February we achieved a total of 9525 detector days of data taking, which corresponds to an average of 158.8 detectors running in the period. 

 

 

This corresponds to a 94.7% uptime with respect to a maximum of 10063 detector days we could have achieved if every detector had been running fine since the first day of installation and if we had no crash. The downtime is due to Comms problems (0.9%), CDAS crashes (1.3%), general power failure (1.3%) and stations not working properly (1.9%). This 94.7% is excellent, and should get improving. 
 

 

We have solved the main source of CDAS data lost, new UPS in the Comms shelters should solve power failure issues, and an automatic Comms reset procedure should cut down Comms failures. The % due to stations down is mainly due to stations left down for a while, mainly because of more important activities on site (electronics deployment). With a growing array, this % will go down, as we'll plan repair trips whenever 5 or more detectors are not behaving properly. This period gave us some spectacular events (>6 10^19 eV, > 30 tanks, hybrid stereos, etc.), giving some confidence on the quality of the data taking.