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

June 10, 2017

Recorded by David Schmidt

Original agenda.

Agenda

Approval of the minutes of the CB meeting November 2016

The minutes for the CB sessions November 2016 were approved without any observations or corrections.

Interim report from the Search Committee for the Nov 2017 Spokesperson elections

Report presented by Piera Ghia. The availability of the slides will be announced to the whole collaboration.

Glennys Farrar expressed a worry to get a working team of spokesperson and co-spokesperson. She suggested to consider presenting pairs for the election. Piera replied that this doesn't seem necessary. Pairs have always found a way to work together, without the need to run as a team. We can expect this to happen again and don't have to change the procedure.

Project Management

DPA Task leadership

Ingo proposed Lukas Nellen as a co-taks leader for the DPA task, with Tom Paul as a task leader, since Tom has to reduce his time on Auger.

Approved.

WBS presentation

Patrick Stassi presented the AugerPrime WBS.

Markus Roth asked about changing the accounting to Euros. Karl-Heinz Kampert replied that his will have to be done at some point. It is problematic for the Finance Board to follow the currency conversions.

Reports and Requests (part 1)

Request to permit the use of Offline for POEMMA design studies

Lukas presented the POEMMA request and asked for worries or objections. Do we share a fixed snapshot? Darko pointed out that the request includes the use of physics modules and that in the past, we usually shared fixed snapshot.

Use of a snapshot of offline approved.

Analysis archiving

Time Huege presented the proposed Analysis Archiving Policy.

Lukas mentioned that this had been proposed and approved in the past. But nothing happened to implement this. Karl-Heinz Kampert stressed that we have an agreement to archive analysis, approved by the CB.

Tim Huege explained that the AERA horizontal analysis has been documented and can be used as precedent. (Data files/code/etc.) He suggests to approve now. The recovery of the archived analysis has not yet been tried, it awaits a student re-taking the topic.

Lukas suggest to create a Working group to define what needs to be kept (space concerns). Tim reiterates: New publications should follow this. Please apply this procedure so it can be tried and improved. The PC will encourage the use of current publications.

AREA extension upgrade complement

Jörg presented a proposal for a radio upgrade (AERA upgrade slides).

Lukas asks Jörg to clarify the request to the CB:

  • General support
  • Support letter from spokesperson to be used in funding requests in Germany and the Netherlands.

Discussion summary

  • KK - Neth. situation?
  • JH - Oct. deadline for infrastructure funding. Maybe ask for 70% of 3.5 M EUR. Need lobbying now.
  • RE - SSD side supports this. Technical details. Phase space factor 2 extension. Brings in different community. Wouldn’t be a huge diversion of resources.
  • FS - Proposal is late. Design report? Engineering array? Could endanger upgrade implementation.
  • T - Not much to do w/ electronics as already have connector. Extra money would be nice. Manpower? Maybe isn’t interfering w/ upgrade.
  • JH - Know late, but only now have confidence to propose. Re-emphasized 1.7 M EUR contribution to canon upgrade. Goes over better w/ funding agency, this proposal. Zero risk (or higher risk not due given benefits to existing hardware)
  • MK - Challenge will be to come up w/ mass production design.
  • ? - Limited bandwidth? Power.
  • JH - Trigger from tank. Simplify data to be transferred. More efficient cells help in winter.
  • PS - Binary receiving of money? or
  • JH - Couldn’t be just cannon upgrade hardware. Need to report.
  • I - Manpower?
  • JH - Different people.
  • P - Looks like tech. board discussion. Intrusion of tanks.
  • I - Only stage of proposal. Once approved we go through tech. Board. These things come after.
  • JK - Apply for money now… first step.
  • D - Support of idea. Need more tech. info for tech. discussion to make sense.
  • MK - Question simple. CB likes idea. Tech details not decided. Principled decision of whether CB would like it or not.
  • BK - Deadlines, etc. for application, when receive money, by when have to use?
  • JH - Oct. -> may be 6 months if approved. Not sure when next opportunity. 3 years? Now or never.
  • FS - Capitalize on existing equipment. Must be sure that no impact on existing equipment… easy to say but technical discussion must be had.
  • MR - highly optimistic. One of few chances to get new $ for new and help w/ old. Scientific gain. FD not low in zenith.
  • A - Risk to not take proposal. Confidence from ITeDA.
  • JH - Must accept 0 EUR deficits in Prime for funding. This is way to generate funding.
  • T - Functionality already integrated into AMIGA, UUB is flexible, as asked to do so years ago.
  • KK - Intention is not to go to 0 EUR countries to ask them to support this proposal. Could offer opportunities to other countries. Nikhef asked opinion. Enhances sky coverage. Promised to bring up to CB. Work needs to be done to proposal. Question is whether we delay proposal or not. Proposing may make impossible.
  • JH - Already have strong competition. Need to log to get in front. Letter from Karlheinz would help.
  • LN - General support, technical details. Authorize KK to write letter? Need to give green light fast. Additional review.
  • LP - Need to agree now. Short process for writing and giving feedback to CB. Someone to look closely.
  • RE - (1) Letter vote for now w/ small committee to produce report after (preferred option) (2) Wait until committee gives report
  • GS - Reiteration of no effect on $ and efforts of Netherlands for Prime.
  • MK - Independent of vote here, need to go to TB
  • FS - Would this be part of upgrade or AERA?
  • KK - To be integrated into AugerPrime but not include in budget (this is on top). Otherwise trouble with finance board.
  • LN - Do we allow KK to write letter to support and set up committee to write proposal and report to CB and TB?
  • I - (1) If we seek other countries to seek funding: SSD (2) Go directly to technical board, no committee?
  • JH - AERA meet here, contact Matthias
  • LN - Allow KK to write letter in support of short sentence to bring to TB (Sentence: The Auger Collaboration supports the proposal to install a radio ant…)
  • RE - Before proposal is submitted
  • LN - Feedback before Nov. meeting

Vote

VOTE: 25 in favor, 0 against, 2 abstentions. Support approved

Collaboration meetings

Meeting frequency

Lukas presented the possibility to change the frequency of collaboration meetings from 3 to 2 per year. One of the important considerations mentioned is the possible impact on the observatory and in the community in Malargüe.

Ingo points out that this change would help institutions save money that could be used for other presence at the site, e.g., for FD shifts. Karl-Heinz mentioned there could be additional, topical meetings between the full collaboration meetings.

Vote on reduction of the meeting frequency from 3 to 2

18 in favour, 5 against, 4 abstention

Change to 2 meetings per year approved

Clarifications

  • Lukas: The voting result means that there will be no meeting in February/March 2018. The first meeting in 2018 will be a full meeting in Krakow.
  • Matthias Kleifges: There will be a Technical Board
  • One meeting (November) will always be held in Malargüe. The other meeting does not necessarily have to be held in the northern hemisphere. It can be decided year by year.

Meeting dates

An e-vote about the meeting dates in Krakow will be held shortly.

Reports and Requests (part 2)

FD Shift Status

Radomir presented the status and balance of FD shift. He suggested to consider having people in Malargüe who can be paid by institutions to perform FD shifts for them. Ingo pointed out that training and later keeping such people available is problematic, especially since they would only be hired on demand and be without work in between.

LIGO MoU signed

The signed MoU with LIGO was presented to the CB.

A.O.B

Ingo mentioned that the owners of the so called Italian Land want us to remove the tanks from their land, since the promise to install a power line has not been kept over many years.

Annex: Names in discussion