Monday, April 7, 2008

PEP-II Event Today

The PEP-II Storage Ring (Photo: Peter Ginter.)

by Brad Plummer

All are invited today, at 2:30 p.m. to the main lawn for ice cream and refreshments. In recognition of a decade of data from the B-Factory, the BaBar collaboration will host a gathering in thanks to the PEP-II team and lab staff, with free ice cream sundaes and snacks. SLAC Director Persis Drell, Hassan Jawahery, David MacFarlane, Jonathan Dorfan and John Seeman each will deliver remarks to mark the occasion.

Come join your friends, colleagues and SLAC Laboratory Staff for an afternoon on the green!

BaBar and PEP-II: End of a Remarkable Era

by Jonathan Dorfan

This past week draws to a close the running of PEP-II, ending nine extraordinarily successful years of operation. For many, it was a last chance to spend time in the Babar and PEP-II control rooms, watching in admiration as the two mega-facilities combined seamlessly to deliver the last batch of data, while at the same time establishing one new PEP-II performance milestone after another.

And so it was that I arrived last Tuesday evening in the Babar control room around 5:30 p.m. to soak up the enthusiasm and mastery of the two cracker-jack, swing-shift operations teams. Shortly after I arrive, 1.65 amperes of electrons are jerked from their stable orbit in the high energy ring. A pre-recorded message, "HER beam lost," reverberates menacingly through the control room. An intense flurry of activity ensues as the two operations teams, separated by half a mile, move into a precisely choreographed set of actions to restore data taking as swiftly as possible. Read more...

PEP-II Stepping Up: Photo Gallery

SLAC's Main Control Center, the primary hub of linac and PEP-II operations. (Click image for larger version. Photo: Brad Plummer.)

by Brad Plummer

The final days of PEP-II operations are, in many respects, days like any other for the beam operators in SLAC's Main Control Center (MCC). Placid lighting, watchful, attentive operators, dozens and dozens of flickering monitors of all sizes—the MCC bears more than a passing resemblance to the bridge of a Hollywood starship.

Despite the subdued lighting, however, occasional bursts of activity erupt—phone calls are made, knobs are turned, the watchful operators stand for a closer look at banks of monitors across the room. Their vigilance pays off with round-the-clock up times for both the accelerator and the PEP-II storage ring. See more photos...

Events
(see all | submit)

• April 7: (2:30 p.m.) Ice Cream on the Green to Celebrate PEP-II and Laboratory Staff
• April 10: (8:00 a.m.) W.K.H. Panofsky: A Symposium Celebrating Pief

 

 

 

• 
  
• Search the Archives
• Subscribe/Unsubscribe
• Submit a Story Idea or Text
• Send Us Your Feedback

Announcements
(see all | submit)

 Lab Announcements

• New Publication: ESH Manual, Chapter 50, Non-ionizing Radiation
• Symposium to Celebrate Pief Panofsky

Community Bulletin Board

• New HIP Class for Men Only: "Locker Room Lectures"
• Stanford BeWell launches "Wellphone"
• New Stanford Weight Management Program starts in April - STAP eligible
• Register Now for Spring HIP Classes

Access
(see all)

• Alpine Gate & PEP Ring Road closed
• Gates 17 & 30 open 24-7
• Research Yard bisected