Transporting the first CMS Forward Pixels to CERN, January 2007
  • Wilson Hall and sculpture at Fermilab
  • Wilson Hall reflected in the frozen cooling pond
Fermilab in January!  The thin layer of new snow and the crisp -5 degree C air was quite
different from Davis, which I had left the night before.  When I got off the plane from
Sacramento at 5:20 am and walked out into the Chicago air, my first thought was of the
detectors - would they be all right in deep cold like this?  But of course, they are designed
to run as low as -20 C, made from materials with well-matched thermal expansion.  No
problem there...

  • Wilson Hall atrium
  • Cooling pond sulpture
I had slept for the duration of the three-and-a-half hour flight from Sacramento, and then
managed to grab another two in our home away from home, Candlewood Suites.  Not so
bad for a red-eye trip to the lab.  With some warm coffee in me, I took a few photos of the  
Fermilab site before the 10:00 am meeting at the High Rise, where we would go over final
details of the trip.

The trip has been planned since early 2005, when we decided that the CMS Forward Pixel
half-disks would be hand-carried aboard commercial aircraft to CERN in Geneva, rather
than risking damage with a commercial shipper.  These were the first two prototype half-disks
to be installed for the initial fall 2007 "engineering" run of the LHC, and would be the first to
provide signals of charged particles from the collisions.  Their construction was completed in
November 2006, and they were brought into full operaration in December, a major milestone
for the Forward Pixel team.  These two half-disks were to be followed by four more pairs, to
be shipped to CERN in 2007 for re-commissioning and installation in 2008.
  • A half-disk in its transport case
  • Bert Gonzalez and the two half disks
We knew that carrying devices like this aboard commercial airlines posed some challenges
with security and the physical safety of the devices themselves.  We were worried about
mechanical shock, electrostatic discharge damage, condensation due to sudden changes
in temperature, and so on.  Clearly the security personnel needed to be able to inspect the
devices without actually touching them.  So we designed and build a special acrylic box
with an internal aluminum mount.  This box in turn was fitted inside a foam lined hard shell
case that could fit on an airline seat.  

  • John and Lalith Perera leaving SiDet
  • Careful, now!
We had made special arrangements with the TSA in Chicago for special security
inspection, and bought two extra seats on the Swiss flight from Chciago to Zurich.  
As there are no direct flights from Chicago to Geneva, we had planned to then drive
the detectors to Geneva from Zurich.  We wanted to avoid having to change planes
and go through additional unforeseen security at an intermediate airport.

As they say, though, no plan survives first contact with the enemy.  The day before the
trip we learned that to pass into Switzerland without paying import duty on the declared
value of the devices ($50,000) we needed to enter through the Geneva customs and not
Zurich, which had no special arrangement with CERN!  So, at the last minute, we bought
tickets from Zurich to Geneva, and crossed our fingers that the Zurich airport security  
would be accommodating.    So, off we went to O'Hare, the half-disk cases safely in the
back seat of our rental car.

  • TSA supervisor and half disk
  • Is that gold or what?
The Swiss personnel were very helpful, and arranged to have us escorted from the  
lounge to the gate for early boarding once we were through security.  After checking
in, we called our TSA contact Daryl Wilson, who came over to the international  
terminal to meet us, and escort us through security.  His supervisor crafted the plan:
she would guard our cases while we went through with the rest of our bags through
the normal process.  Then on the secure side we opened the cases, carefully removed  
the acrylic boxes, and they sent the cases through the xray machine.  They swabbed  
for explosive residues, and peppered us with questions: What the heck were these
things?  What was the experiment at CERN for?  A number of them seemed quite
knowledgeable about electronics and circuits, and understood our concern.  It clearly
was a bit of excitement for them in an otherwise routine day.

  • Lalith and the half disks in the Swiss lounge
  • The half disks safely aboard
We were let aboard the flight first and tried a few ideas for how to set the cases on
the seat, but the flight attendant was adamant that they go on the floor.  So that is
what we did, with some pillows for additional cushioning.  The flight was uneventful
and Lalith and I both managed to eat and sleep.

  • Zurich Airport
  • The Tracker Integration Facility and Building 28
In fact the only problem we encountered along the way was in fact at the Zurich
airport, where the security folks were initially reluctant to let us get away without  
sending the detectors through the xray machine.  In retrospect, perhaps we have
been overly cautious about this - the rollers are not that bad, and if there is static
charge we can discharge the case.  It's best if we arrange this ahead of time in the
future.  In the end the head of the security team there was very accomodating, and
we passed on to the final leg of the journey to Geneva.  

In Geneva we were met at customs by a CERN person who had, thanks to advance
work by our postdoc Ricardo Vasquez, exactly the right papers to zip us straight through.
So we got our rental car, and got ourselves to CERN.

January at CERN!  It was rainy and a bit warm for the season.  Not at all like the
deep freeze at Fermilab, but no complaints from us. We apparently escaped
serious storms in Germany with 160 km/h winds that toppled trees, and forced the
closure of the entire German rail system.    Whew!
  • Christian Veelken and Mauro Dinardi with new toys
  • The two half disks delivered
The CMS Tracker Integration Facility at CERN is (as most labs at CERN are) housed in
a  somewhat non-descript industrial building attached to building 28.  We had started in  
December to set up the clean room space assigned to us, and about four postdocs are
there every  day now, bringing up the computer and electronics systems needed to  
reccommission  the detectors after they are reassembled.  

Upon arrival, we found Mauro Dinardi, a Colorado postdoc, and suited up to go into
the clean room with the cases.  In these rooms, to maintain a dust free environment  
we wear lab coats, hair nets, and shoe covers.  

Our immediate concern was whether there had been any damage to the devices.
As far as we knew they had had a very comfortable ride, with no bumping or jostling,
but one never knows.  We inspected the disks visually without removing them from
their cases, and could see no signs of damage.  Nevertheless there are thousands of
tiny wire bonds, and in the coming weeks, step, by step, the detectors and the whole
TIF operation will be brought to life.  Hopefully they survived their gentle ride!
  • One of the half-disks
  • Close-up of the two blades
This is just the beginning of a year-long campaign at Fermilab and CERN to build,
commission, transport, recommission, and eventually install the Forward Pixels in CMS.
This detector, when complete, will have about 18,000,000 simultaneously operating
electronics channels.  Together with the Barrel Pixel detector, built at PSI in Switzerland,
next year these detectors will have a front-row seat for viewing the first physics
collisions at the LHC.  

Four more trips to go!