Early Logbooks Record NSLS Start-up
May 10, 2012
Rob Rainer (right), holding NSLS logbook #2, was born in December 1982, more than a year after first circulating beam in the VUV Ring. Logbook #3, opened to the chart showing first stored beam in the VUV Ring, is in the hands of Phil Marino, who was seven years old at the time. Rainer and Marino are seated at the NSLS-II console in the NSLS Control Room. From there, machine operators are connected to the NSLS-II control system.
The NSLS Control Room keeps THE BOOKS. These are the official studies and operations logbooks in which critical operational data for the facility are recorded. In 2012, NSLS marked 30 years of operations. The first book was started in November 1980, when accelerator physicists began commissioning the linac-to-booster injection line.
Logbook #2, July – November 1981, contains two pages of print outs of the final machine conditions on August 12, when first beam was circulated in the VUV Ring.
In logbook #3, November 1981 – February 1982, page 104 carries the proclamation “10 turns! 5 a.m.” on December 11. A graph pages on page 116 shows beam lifetime, with the y axis indicating beam intensity in current and the x axis showing time in seconds. “VUV STORED BEAM (DEC. 11)” is written across the paper.
These early machine milestones were announced in two Brookhaven Bulletins of 1981. In the August 21 issue, project head Arie van Steenbergen described the initial beam in the VUV Ring as “modest.” Four months later, the Bulletin of December 18 noted that when the ring “reached the saturation level prescribed by the present beam lifetime of about two minutes, it had attained a current 20 to 30 times higher” than that of the booster.
Accelerator physicist Sam Krinsky recalled those early days. “The NSLS was built with a small staff and a very tight budget,” he said. “It took a maximal effort from everyone to bring the accelerator systems to the state of completion required to store beam in the VUV Ring. When stored beam was achieved in December 1981, we were all very excited.”
2012-3179 | INT/EXT | Newsroom
