[Olympus] OLYMPUS status

[Richard G Milner]

Dear OLYMPUS colleagues,
I am writing to bring you up to date on progress towards realizing the OLYM=
PUS
experiment.  In the last several weeks, we have had feedback from funding
agencies in Germany and the U.S. on the requests which we submitted early t=
his
year; we had a meeting with DESY management in Hamburg; and we had a confer=
ence
call last Friday with the DESY PRC. The bottom line is that we are making
significant progress towards realizing OLYMPUS.

Funding:
DOE carried out a mail review of our proposal.  The result is that the scie=
nce
case for OLYMPUS is judged to be strong.  Assuming the DOE funding request =
is
appropriated by congress, DOE expect to begin funding of OLYMPUS in FY2010
(begins October 1, 2009).  DOE requests a technical review to approve costs=
 and
establish that there are no technical issues.  DOE is happy for DESY to car=
ry
out the review.  Together with DESY management and the PRC, we have agreed =
on
the call last Friday that this review should most likely take place at DESY=
 the
week of September 14th, directly after our next OLYMPUS collaboration meeti=
ng
earlier that week.  We discussed the names of possible reviewers.  Feedback
from NSF to Michael Kohl on his request for funds for the luminosity monitor
has also been positive.
In Germany, BMBF has indicated that the OLYMPUS request was denied for the
formal reason that it did not fit the solicitation.  DESY management and the
German groups are pursuing this with BMBF.
At the DESY meeting, the group leaders from the Russian, U.K., and Italian
groups reported that they will be submitting funding requests for OLYMPUS l=
ater
this year.
At the DESY meeting, we made significant progress is identifying in-kind
contributions from the collaborating institutions which has the effect of
reducing the cost of the experiment to DESY.  This process is continuing.

Schedule:
A detailed schedule for the OLYMPUS experiment has been developed by Doug
Hasell, Uwe Schneekloth, and Frank Brinker.  A summary overview of the sche=
dule
is attached. DESY is proceeding with removal of the ARGUS experiment, the
modification of DORIS quadrupoles and is committed to collaborating on all
OLYMPUS design work until the end of 2009.

Technical design:
We must be ready to defend the experiment at the technical review at DESY in
mid-September. We have decided to prepare a Technical Design Report. A draft
should be ready at the end of August for consideration by the reviewers.  I
will coordinate the preparation of the TDR.  I have attached a proposed out=
line
where I have taken the liberty of assigning coordinators for different sect=
ions.
 To make progress on the design we are in the process of setting up a meeti=
ng at
MIT the week of July 13th where key DESY personnel will attend, work with B=
ates
engineers, and have the opportunity to view the assembled BLAST detector at
Bates.  We would like to see US OLYMPUS collaborators at MIT during this ti=
me.
There are three significant tasks which we have to carry out over the summe=
r:
-	Design of the support system which couples the BLAST detector to the ARGUS
rails
-	Design of the target system including the target chamber, vacuum system a=
nd
collimators
-	Design of new supports for the TOFs

Memoranda of Understanding:
Uwe Schneekloth is preparing MOU drafts between collaborating institutions =
and
DESY. DOE identified this as an issue also.

Next OLYMPUS Collaboration meeting:
This is planned for the week of September 14th at DESY.  This is the optimal
time based on your feedback to Doug?s poll. As I indicated above, it also
looks like the best time for the technical review from the perspective of t=
he
DESY management and the PRC.  We likely need two days for the collaboration
meeting and the technical review could occur on the third day. We would like
every group in OLYMPUS to have representation at this meeting. The major go=
als
will be
-	To prepare for the technical review. We would like the engineers from the
institutes to attend.
-	To finalize MOU?s
-	To discuss organization of the collaboration

Yerevan Physics Institute, Armenia has joined the OLYMPUS collaboration.  T=
his
group is well known as a potent force in hadron physics in Europe and the U=
.S.
and they have a strong presence at DESY.  Already, together with the St.
Petersburg group, they are active participants in the disassembly of ARGUS.

As more details of the upcoming meeting at MIT in mid-July and the collabor=
ation
meeting/technical review at DESY in mid-September become fixed, I will be in
contact.  In the meantime I will be making individual contacts concerning w=
ork
on the technical design and the preparation of the TDR.
Best regards,
Richard
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