MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE COLLABORATION BOARD OF THE PIERRE AUGER OBSERVATORY PROJECT

March 14, 2012

Recorded by Mariangela Settimo

The Collaboration Board of the Pierre Auger Observatory Project convened at Malargüe, Argentina, on March 14, 2012

Attendance list.

Agenda

Status and financial reports

Slides for project management report

Project management and operations report

Status of 2011 (3 countries have not yet finalized the payment).

For 2012, costs ~ 2 Millions of USD

FOPAA status reported.

AMIGA review

Sessions on Sunday and Monday were dedicated to the review of AMIGA. The comments of reviewers will be discussed at the TB. However (personal points) data from the Twin tests and BATATA would be needed and the time scale is a important issue.

Collaboration membership of Hawaii group

Sergio reminds that Jim Beatty and Peter Gorham gave presentations in March 2011 and they were invited to present the scientific plans.

Presentation

Presentation given by Peter Gorham: HAWAII group would include:
2 Profs (P.G., and Prof. Gary Varner), 3 post-docs, 2 Engineers, 5 students ( + Roberto Mussa).

The group is mainly involved in Radio and GHz detection. They worked in the past on the Askaryian effect and were the initiator of AMBER. The lab have also resources dedicated to this item. They can thus contribute to R&D (AMBER and microwaves), to support the Auger Radio initiatives, and to the maintenance and repairs of SD electronics (Unified Boards).

Discussion

Ad: asks for a possible (economical) contribution for buying additional antennas (P.Gorham: some contributions are possible)

Kleinfeller: remarks that support for electronics are appreciated (for example to contribute to the upgrade of SD)

Pedro Facal (task leader of GHz): remarks that P. Gorham is already contributing to the GHz task.

Vote:Approved

Proposal for Atmospheric Science at Auger

Presentation

Original letter of intent from atmospheric scientists from the LISA and the LaMP laboratories, France.

Francois Montanet presented 3 letters of intent from the groups of LaMP, LISA and LPSC in France. Two projects connected to their interest in Auger have been presented:

1st project: Modeling the aerosol evolution in South America (by LISA lab)

2nd project: for ionic precursors and aerosols (connected to the experiment CLOUD in CERN) (by LaMP and LPSC labs).

Benefits for the collaboration: study of size, chemical composition of aerosol and measurement of trace gases, possibility to join international meteorological network as GAW/AERONET. They request:

  • access to Lidar data
  • installation of detectors in the site
  • help from the local staff.

Discussion

Jim Cronin: the installation of new detectors requires a more detailed discussion

Roberto Mussa: since we are planning to construct a detector for the measurement of aerosol in a short range, it would be nice if these groups can contribute to it.

The CB decide to proceed and invite someone from the French groups to present their scientific program in Prague or in the next meeting.

Reports

Executive report (Karl Heinz Kampert)

New PC

Some members of the PC (Carola, Piera, Ralph Engel) are finishing their mandate. Piera and Carola will continue their work. Ralph Engel will be replaced by Michael Unger.

New PC composition approved by the CB

Operations costs and retired members

  • Operating costs:2 Millions of USD for 2012. KHK asks to groups/people to suggest how to reduce this costs.
  • Proposal to release the payment of OCL for senior members of the collaboration (i.e. retired but active). Each year a letter should be sent from the groups with the names of seniors to be released from the OCL payment. If the fraction of retired people is similar in all countries, then nothing change in terms of costs from each country. KHK proposes to discuss about this point in the EB and to have an electronic vote.

Physics coordinators

Find a place in the project management plans and give a presentation at the next meetings.

Task force 2015

A *Task force 2015* has been formed.

Charge:propose scientific goals, define upgrades, estimate time scale, resources and costs, provide a schedule for production
Members:Antoine Letessier-Selvon, Pierre Billoir, Michael Unger, Francois Montanet, Mario Pimenta, Lorenzo Perrone, Ad van der Berg, David Nitz, Peter Mazur, Ralph Engel
Chaired:Jim Matthews, Paul Sommers, Ingo Allekotte

CERN Symposium

Good and positive experience. Common wish (together with Fukushima) is to have a joint group (Intercollaboration WG) for a next generation UHECR observatory. Auger and TA collaborators can coordinate efforts in R&D. This means: emerging R&D would be tested in both observatory (with the approval of the respective CBs). Paolo and Antoine will be in contact with TA people. The WG would include 5 members and will be chaired by Antoine and Paolo.

Jim Cronin: Auger and TA would be opened also to people from other collaborations and other countries.

Licence for Offline software

For info and future discussions: Tom Paul have forwarded a request to use the Offline in other collaborations. The framework in already available: this request includes now also the physics modules.

Lukas Nellen reminds that we have not an official copyright. Markus Roth: discussion should be based on single requests

Publications committee

Report presented by Piera Ghia.

All plots of previous papers and proceedings are now available on the webpage: http://augerpc.in2p3.fr/node_galleries_grid

Statistics

Since November, 47 papers in hand (21 FAL journals, 11 FAL conferences, 2 Non-auger papers, 6 proceedings with at least 1 auger author) SD Asymmetry (PRL) and Radio Self-triggering (APP) papers rejected in December. Two EB formed for these 2 papers.

Procedure for publication

  • for each paper an editorial board will be formed by the PC. After the submission of the final version to PC, the paper will be available for collaboration review for 2 weeks. Two official readers will be also assigned to each paper. Comments and discussions will be posted on the webpage. Additional remark: everybody should read the papers submitted for internal review.
  • Also the conference proceeding should be submitted 2 weeks before the deadline.

Publication charges

Publication charges (e.g., the open access) are currently paid by the institution that submit the paper. Piera (and PC) propose the publication charges of FAL papers to be paid by the collaboration.

Approved

Conference committee

Report presented by Enrique Zas

Country representatives and Task leaders can propose a list of persons interested to conferences.

Please inform the CC also in case of invited talks.

Elections for CB Chair and Co-Chair

Markus Roth reports about the Search committee. Search Committee asked to senior members to provide the name of a candidate.

Proposed candidates:
Lukas Nellen, Ronald Shellard, Ad van der Berg, Darko Veberic (in alphabetic order and both available for chair and co-chair).

50% of votes needed to be elected

Chair (2 rounds needed): Ron Shellard is elected

Co-Chair (2 rounds needed): Lukas Nellen is elected

Future collaboration meetings

Analysis meeting in Prague, June 18-22, 2012

Petr Travnick gives a presentation with informations about meeting venue, accommodation, registration and social activities.

Webpage for the meeting: http://amca.cz/auger2012

registration opened. Remind: Prague is a touristic city: register and book flights as soon as possible.

A school for Offline tutorials can be planned after the meeting: (24) 25-26 June in Prague.

Please register within the next 2 weeks. http://indico.nucleares.unam.mx/event/AugerSoftwareTutorial2012

This is a pre-registration, to have a feedback of the interest in this school and proceed in the organization. Lukas will send a mail to the Auger collaboration.

Organization of the meeting November 11-16, 2012

Agenda will be organized by Carla Bleve

Dates for the meetings in 2013

March 2013

  • March 10-15, 2013
  • March 17-22, 2013

Analysis meeting 2013

  • June 17-21, 2013
  • June 24-28, 2013

Ron reminds that the ICRC 2013 would be at the beginning of July.

November 2013

  • November 11-16 (Monday to Saturday)
  • November 14-19 (Thursday to Tuesday)

The dates for the meeting in november changed from the usual scheme (from Monday to Friday) to include the Malargüe day (Saturday, 16 November).

Vote

Postponed, to be decided by electronic vote.

A.o.B.

Nothing presented