DRAFT Minutes of the
FGST International Finance Committee Meeting
Rome 10 May 2011
The International Finance Committee met at INFN Headquarters, Rome
NOTE: This was an abbreviated meeting held in the late afternoon of 10 May 2011.
In Attendance:
IFC Members:
Chair – David MacFarlane
France – CEA: Isabelle Grenier for Pierre-Olivier Lagage
Italy – ASI: Elisabetta Cavazutti
Italy – INFN: Benedetto D’ettorre
Japan – Hiroshima: Yasushi Fukazawa
USA – NASA Jaya Bajpayee
USA – DOE Kathy Turner
Others:
USA: Stanford: Peter Michelson, T. Langenstein
NASA: Julie McEnery
SLAC: Roger Blandford, Rob Cameron, Richard Dubois, Harvey Lynch
FGST: L. Baldini, E. Charles, G. Tosti
UCSC: Steve Ritz
Minutes 10 May 2011
LAT Status and Overview – P. Michelson
We were asked for the impacts in the field by FGST. The FGST has been produced numerous major publications. There have been 121 published LAT papers and 132 have been accepted; see p. 7 of the presentation. The citation record is extensive; see p. 8. The LAT had 3 of the top 20 number of citations in 2009 and 4 of the top 20 in 2010; see pp. 10 – 11. Some of these publications prominently featured in the press. See p. 4 for pointers to an article in Science and the announcement of the Bruno Rossi award to the LAT team.
There is strong symbiosis between the LAT and other observations; see p. 18 to 21.
Pass 8 will be a major upgrade to the analysis software; see subsequent talks.
Mission Status – J. McEnery
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/exp/glast/doc/5_11/mission_mcenery.ppt
The observatory is working very smoothly. Other satellites have had trouble with their reaction wheels, and we are monitoring the LAT situation carefully. Use of the reaction wheels has been reduced. Battery performance is stable.
Most of the observation time has been in survey mode. There have been autonomous re-points, and those have been speeded up from 5 hours to 2.5 hours.
There have been 3 targets of opportunity observations, acting on information received from other experiments’ observations.
The data volume and number of publications vs. time is shown on p. 9.
There will be a “senior review” by NASA in the spring of 2012. Such reviews take place every 2 years. Isabelle asked if there were any inputs needed from other agencies.
LAT Analysis Coordinator – E. Charles
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/exp/glast/doc/5_11/ACDC_IFC_May2011_gino.pdf
The collaboration has 472 members at this time. The members belong to an average of 2.3 of the 8 science groups.
Pass 7 analysis has greatly improved the recovery of low energy photons (below ca. 200 MeV) having an overlaid extra track; see p. 6. See p. 7 for the various Pass 7 science areas of emphasis.
Computing – Report L. Baldini
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/exp/glast/doc/5_11/lbaldini_ifc_pass8_v5.pdf
The recovery of photons have an over-laid charged track has been greatly improved. See p. 6. The trackers point spread function has been improved.
Pass 8 will be a major improvement in analysis software. See p. 9 for a tentative schedule through the first half of 2013.
ISOC Status – R. Cameron
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/exp/glast/doc/5_11/Cameron-ISOC-IFC2011may10.ppt
The LAT is performing very well.
Pages 2 - 3 show the highlights of ISOC operations in 2010. There have been 2 flight software updates since launch. We foresee the end of FSW updates.
Preparations are being made for a solar-maximum. Such flare could cause pile-up in the ACD. We are working on automating the process to mark time periods as 'BAD' i.e. unsuitable for standard photon analysis.
Some areas are being developed for automatic science processing: GRB blind search and refinement, and flaring source detection and source monitoring. See p. 10.
Collaboration Computing – R. Dubois
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/exp/glast/doc/5_11/IFC201105-SAS-v00.ppt
Page 3 shows the resource usage vs. time.
The forecast for hardware necessary is shown on p. 4. We assume that we shall want to reprocess all data with pass-8. We continue to explore advantageous pricing in disk storage. The purchase of Sun by Oracle has complicated the kind of agreements that we had in the past. In the mean-time we are borrowing disks as needed.
We continue to make progress on a new computing model. Central to this is a “transparent” disk/tape system. We are also working on improving file transfer to and from Lyon to make use of computing capacity there.
Budget – P. Michelson
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/exp/glast/doc/5_11/FGST%20OCF%20CY10-CY12.xlsx
The proposed 2012 budget is shown in the last column of sheet “CY10 Plan & Actuals-present” of the spreadsheet. It is very similar to the CY 2010 budget.
The shared and contributions are shown on the sheet “CY12 Shares and Contributions”. Note: The headcount from Germany, Australia, Great Britain, Spain, and Austria are not included in the invoice calculation. The number of members is small, and these are absorbed into the US share for simplicity.
Round Table – All
Elisabetta: We shall talk with NASA about the Senior Review.
Yasushi: We do not yet have a budget for the coming year.
Benedetto: We congratulate the LAT team on the impressive results. Reorganization of the INFN is still in process. We still have budget uncertainties, but we shall try to support FGST.
Jaya: NASA is committed to FGST in the face of a projected budget cut. We are delighted with the results. The Senior Review will concentrate on the science.
Isabelle: We shall support FGST in the coming year.
David M: The performance of the LAT is very impressive. FGST is now about 50% of our HEP activity, and we strongly support it.
Roger: The KAVLI is very enthusiastic about the FGST.
Kathy: We are very enthusiastic about the FGST results. This is a prime mission in the 5-year plan. We expect to have a proposal from DOE to NASA for the Senior Review.
Peter: FGST thanks the agencies for their strong support.
Minutes of previous meeting – All
The minutes of the August 2010 meeting were approved without change.
Next Meetings – All
It was proposed that future meetings alternate between face-to-face meeting in the autumn and phone meetings in the spring. The next meeting will be at SLAC in conjunction with the Fermi Collaboration Meeting. The meeting will be arranged so that a phone connection will be provided to members who are unable to attend in person.