Large scale facilities experiments

When someone has to go for an experiment at a large scale facilities, several bookings and trainings have to be done. Here is a list of things to prepare when going for such experiments, in chronological order, once beam time has been given and the experiment dates are known :

• To de done as soon as possible :
  • Contact Caroline Antonioli Pletscher, thelaboratory's secretary, to open a travel request : caroline.pletscher@epfl.ch +41 21 69 33375
  • Inquire whether a VISA or other is required to visit the country and start paperwork if needed.
  • Book the guesthouse. Several facilities, such as PSI, have a limited number of rooms in the guest house, and are thus often filled quite fast. One needs to book the guesthouse as soon as the experiment is scheduled.  For people traveling abroad, a hotel address might be necessary to fill VISA applications
  • Ask whether security trainings are needed and if an on site part is mandatory. Typically, for experiments in the US, 2-4 weeks are necessary to get authorizations and be registered properly in the facility's system. At ORNL, for example, an on-site training is mandatory, additionally to the online training, This would justify going one day in advance to take care of the training without loosing beam time.
  • Start thinking about sample transportation. Are you going to take the sample in your luggage, or rather in a checked in bag ? Are you going to ship the sample ? If you are in doubt regarding shipment of radioactive samples, please read : https://wiki.epfl.ch/lqm/radioactivesamples
• To be done shortly after :
  • Book a hotel (if there is no guesthouse nearby)
  • Verify if no car is needed. Typically, in the US (Los Alamos, ORNL, NIST), renting a car is necessary.
  • Book transportation tickets to go on site. Airplane tickets have to be booked through Caroline Antonioli Pletscher. Train tickets can be refunded after purchase.
  • Prepare the sample and its transportation method.
• During the experiment :
  • Record data, and fill the online logbook in the team drive : https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/0AO02jv0K9fyBUk9PVA
  • Keep receipts in order to ask for a refund after the trip.
• Once the experiment is done, the user should think about :
  • Getting the sample back : setting a return address for the facility to ship the sample when below activity standards.
  • Make sure that the user is in possession of the data and can read/analyse it in some way.
  • Analyse the data.
  • Tape receits on blank sheets on paper, only on one side, in chornological order. The receipts should be separated in different categories : transportation, food, housing, ...
  • Bring the taped receipts to Caroline