The Brown Bat
August, 2002
Compiled by Dave Boehnlein
Greetings to all regular Bat fans and bewildered first-time readers. The Brown Bat is a periodic chronicle of my travels and adventures in the Northlands of Minnesota, chock full of information about the MINOS far detector installation. It is generally updated monthly. You can receive an e-mail notice for every exciting issue of The Brown Bat by letting me know you want to be on the mailing list. You can avoid ever having another one appear in your mailbox in the same way. Any opinions expressed in The Brown Bat are strictly my own and are not necessarily shared by Fermilab or the MINOS Collaboration. – DJB
In This Issue:
Apologia
For the first time since January 2001, I did not go to Soudan this month. The lapse was not planned, for I intended to continue going up there until the detector was finished or until I dropped. Toward the end of last month, I dropped. However, thanks to the wonders of Modern Medicine, which include marvelous methods of clearing arteries blocked with massive amounts of Shirk’s Tavern Pizza, I’m back on my feet again and I plan to return to the mine in October. Anyone wanting to ship items north by the Soudan Express (my rusty but trusty pickup truck) should let me know by October 18. Meanwhile, I will provide what illumination I can from Fermilab for the faithful readers of the Brown Bat.
Manpower at the Mine
Physicist Shift Leaders are getting a little thin on the ground. Not only am I out of commision for two months, but by the time I get back to Soudan, Louie Barrett and Bob Webb will have finished their tours of duty as PSLs and returned to their respective universities to mold young minds. That leaves Sergei Avvakumov, Tim Bergfeld, and myself. If you or someone you know would like to volunteer, let one of us know. It’s an exciting and interesting job and, just to sweeten the deal, your first Shirk’s Tavern Pizza is on me.
The minecrew is also beginning to thin. Two of the minecrew have left for new jobs. Unfortunately, this is a trend we may expect to continue as the far detector approaches completion. Both losses were from the afternoon shift.
Supermodule 1 Magnetic Field
The coil for SM1 has been activated and measurements of the air fields have been documented Godley et al. in NuMI note 859. The appropriate safety signage and lights have been put up. The magnetic fields in the walkway areas are in the neighborhood of 5 gauss or more and, in accordance with OSHA regulations, people with cardiac pacemakers should not enter these areas when the coil is energized.
Database Tables
I worked with Robert Hatcher and Tim Gerla to help put together a database table specifying what components (steel pieces, scintillator modules) are where in the detector and when they were installed. The commissioning date would probably be a better datum for the validity range of the files, but they’re not as easy to dig out of the logbook.
Andrew Godley and Brian LaFreniere measured the prototype veto shield module positions. The wall modules have not been installed as of this writing. I’ve put their measurements into a database-friendly file and posted it on my web page.
Health Tips
The following tips are intended to help you maintain the robust health needed to do neutrino physics.
- Avoid good food. Pizzas, omellettes, bacon cheeseburgers, and ice cream sundaes all contain more saturated fat and cholesterol than is good for you. Go easy on these things to keep your cholesterol level down. Eat more veggies and keep on saying “yum, yum.”
- Drink a moderate amount of beer daily.
- Keep your cardiovascular system in shape with a moderate amount of exercise three times a week.
- Drink a moderate amount of wine daily.
- If you smoke – What are you, crazy? Quit!
- Drink a moderate amount of Armagnac, brandy, or Cognac daily.