June 5, 2003

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Present: T. Hallman (Chair), B. Christie, J. Dunlop, G. Eppley, H. Huang, P. Jacobs, T. Ljubicic, D. Majka, J. Marx, H.G. Ritter, J. Thomas, H. Wieman

1. Discussion of nominations for new STAR Talks Committee members to replace the people due to rotate off the panel.

   The Board discussed some of the considerations for the makeup of the STC (e.g. international representation, confidence in the Board's balance and fairness, etc.) as well as possible candidates. The Board will give input and select two people from those nominated by email after the meeting.

    

2. Draft Upgrades Outline/Direction for Response to Tom Kirk

   There was a brief discussion concerning the decadal (upgrades) plan solicited by Tom Kirk for discussion at the upcoming PAC meeting in September. The plan is to have a draft ready for the collaboration to read and comment on by mid-July. A final draft would be sent to the Advisory Board and the Council towards the end of that month, for review, and discussion/conclusion during their meetings at the Collaboration meeting in August.

   The Beam Use Request will be similar. It is due to Tom Kirk by August 29th.

    

3. Discussion of possible funding profiles/priorities for initial upgrade construction projects as a function of fiscal year (possible MRPC TOF Barrel, Micro-Vertex Tracker Scenarios from 2004-2007)

   There was some discussion of the near-term prospectus for STAR upgrades. It is hoped that the DOE supported Major Item of Equipment (MIE) construction project for the MRPC Barrel Time Of Flight detector could begin in FY2005. It would continue through FY2006 in the proposal that has been submitted to BNL Management. It was also discussed that the proposal for a micro-vertex detector should be ready for review by the Collaboration in December of this year, so that (assuming it is approved) it can be included in the BNL Field Work Proposal next February for a possible construction start in FY2006 (starting the project at this time is not guaranteed; but for this to be possible at all, it must be included in the BNL field work proposal submitted in February of 2004).

    

4. A report on STAR's future requirements for computational capabilities -- hardware (CPU, storage, networking, etc.) and software for the next 5 years and how development plans for RCF, PDSF, etc. map onto these plans....e.g. what is our strategic plan for computing?

   Due the rigors of the ittf review, there was not a presentation or detailed discussion on this point. A general consensus though was that we need to examine our future needs for computing with input from different interests/segments of the Collaboration and have some detailed discussion of this at the Collaboration meeting in August.

    

5. Initial thoughts/discussion on next year's Beam Use Request.

   There was a brief discussion that the working assumption for cryo operation of RHIC in the next run is 27 weeks; subtracting approximately 3 weeks for machine needs (cool down, warm up, etc.) and 5 weeks of setup for each configuration, it would be very challenging to run two configurations (which would leave a total of 14 weeks for physics data taking, best case). The concern was whether we could reasonably have both an ion run and a spin run in the same year as we did this year, or there should be two more or less dedicated runs (one for ions, one for spin) in consecutive years. Support was expressed for some time (a few weeks) at a minimum for spin physics machine development to insure important questions could be answered, and the momentum of the program could be maintained. No firm conclusion was reached; it was stated we need input from the collider people as well to know what makes sense.

    

Item that came up from the floor:

Discussion of the upcoming colloquium and press release. There was discussion surrounding this event, and a recommendation that the Spokesperson insure to the extent possible that the language of the press release reflect STAR's viewpoint.