December 18, 2017
The Astroparticle Lab had one day of `retreat’ on Dec. 18th, to discuss challenges and strategies for the future. The retreat happened in one of the meeting rooms of the Library, and there was a nice break at the Vasa Vasa gelato place in Al Muneera.
The lab started discussing the status of the MOOC paper, still under review. The lab agreed to make some advertisement to the community, using the ArXiV version, and an e-mail was sent out to the DARWIN collaboration. Presently, an array with 24 MPPC is in the test chamber, and Instructor Osama Fawwaz will work on the system during the 2017 winter break.
Hamamatsu is not responding either on the technical issues that the lab has encountered on the MPPCs. It wold be nice to bargain a free sample or a heavy discount on the tile version of the VUV4, if there will be one, as it seems.
On a similar note, the PMT amplifiers have been sent to Zurich, and it may be worth considering to be there (in Zurich) to test them with Alex&c, to prevent any misuse and consequent wrong conclusions on their performance. After the test, it could be good to publish a paper. Definitely not on NIM. By the way, there might be better choices for the OpAmp?
The cryo chamber has been ordered and tests should be run at some point in Torino. A key issue will be space allocation at NYUAD.
An important aspect will be the physics program to be carried out with the system. For sure, the lab will carry out tests for the MPPCs, but the IR exploration will be the next thing. So, the Astroparticle Lab will propose a REF “pathfinder” or whatever it’s called, to ask for money for IR sensors and possibly some xenon.
The other REF, that will be submitted by Dr. Lotfi Benabderrahmane, will be on the `outside station’. The lab has identified several physics topics and reasons why the development and maintenance of the OS could be interesting. See the picture with the mind map.
The lab has decided to go for an enrichment of the station with `standard’ gamma, neutron, E, B detectors (plus the Cherenkov), but having in mind the development of something compact that could be deployed in a harsh environment.
Finally, the lab had a wild brainstorming session, whether some ideas, maybe worth exploring, came out:
- 3D printing of scintillators
- identification and growth of new crystals
- collaboration with the chemistry department
- collaboration on LXe PET with the Spanish group (PETALO) (they don’t have a readout for the MPPC)
This last idea seemed the most sensible and promising, so Dr. Adriano Di Giovanni will try to contact Paola Ferrario.
The lab didn't discuss much of the following topics:
- Cosmic Ray detector (Gianmarco is working on it)
- Offline monitoring
- NORM
- XRF