Proton Calorimetry/Meetings/2025/01/15

Minutes for UCL Proton Beam Therapy Group Meetings, 15th January

Joe Bateman, Sonia Escribano, Simon Jolly, Andreas Korn , Raffaella Radogna (via teams), Harry Barnett, Matt Warren

Started filling wiki page for plans for test beam in Trento
Received sheets of tuffnel material - whether there will be an updated CAD from harry - on how to proceed on frame for second prototype
Will discuss with Bari mech eng to discuss drawings for second prototype designs etc

Just QuARC enclosure windows left to design
Wheels have been added in CAD
Everything else pretty much designed - prioritise everything over the wheels
Has discussed with Sonia to mount fpga and rasb pi to ceiling - but ideally add a shock absorber for the circuits
- And ensure that raspberry pi in its case with heatsink when attached to lid with shock absorber doesn't collide with scintillator stack when closing lid
Quickest route to get scintillator sheets manufactured in shortest time is via John and Wayne in Wales

Still waiting on harry for updated quarc casing and scintillator sheets machining before
Harry can send raffy design for updated quart and enclosure to get idea for spacing
- If need can duplicate design with slightly larger case with slightly more longitudinal space
  - i.e. design without breadboard but with two rails
We have correct read back pattern from Oxford boards - DAQ readout chain is now working and works as designed and signal is much cleaner than before
Can daisy chain 4 boards together and saw 4 read back patterns
But 4 small errors on ddc
- Reset signal isn't going through buffer (I.e. takes input through Schmidt triggers)
- Upstream usb connector is 180degrees out
- Potential for ground loops on daisy chaining ddc boards
- Can't currently put photodiodes on board since the boards are missing sockets for them to slot in
About 4 weeks turn around for Pete to update circuit boards and get them manufactured

Create new prod.sh for terminal based daq
Look at what flags current shell script is pulling it out
Try and make so that it doesn't require everything in a specific order
Looking at live calibration data
- 10% difference between live calibration and post-calibration
- Post-calibration reads data twice
Reverse options no longer working - but only clatterbridge board - but no need to worry about fixing since next clatterbridge module will be half sized ddc board
Information window on gui being updated
Higher priority for next quarc only beam test - what do we need that we don't currently have

Investigating difference in dose-depth curves between TOPAS and FRED
Bragg peaks appear to match in plateau but not in Bragg peak and distal fall off (FRED has sharper peak and deposits more dose in Bragg peak)
Issue seemingly disappears when using mono energetic beam (150 MeV) with no spread - so likely to do with the way the code handles energy straggling
In discussion with Giorgio and Ilaria from Maestro to discuss issue
Continue to work on getting QuARC Geant4 simulation up to date and running.