Dear SEES Users, As you have likely heard, the Advanced Photon Source (APS) has been upgraded to a multi-bend achromat source and the APS physics team is currently commissioning the new storage ring. They are making excellent progress and have

As you have likely heard, the Advanced Photon Source (APS) has been upgraded to a multi-bend achromat source and the APS physics team is currently commissioning the new storage ring. They are making excellent progress and have stored up to 60 mA. You can read more about the APS Upgrade (APS-U) here: https://www.aps.anl.gov/APS-Upgrade. You can see the recent ring current history here: https://www3.aps.anl.gov/aod/blops/status/srStatus.html.

The APS plans to begin shielding verification and commissioning of beamlines in the coming weeks, and they expect this process to extend over a period of several months. Current projections are that most of the SEES beamlines will engage in various stages of commissioning activities across the summer and into the fall.

You will likely receive a notification from APS soon about the call for general user proposals for the 2024-3 run cycle. Many SEES beamlines at the APS will participate in this call, though the timeline for the transition from commissioning to user experiments will vary by beamline and will remain fluid due to uncertainties in the APS shielding verification schedule, as well as a few outstanding optical component deliveries. Based on current projections, we anticipate that the 13-BM beamlines will support user experiments for most of the 2024-3 cycle (late September through mid-December), that 13-ID will do so for a few weeks at the end of the cycle (in December). SEES programs at Sectors 3, 6 and 30 will resume at a later date. The APS hopes to be running at 100 mA in the 2024-3 run, but the actual current may be less.

If you are interested in participating in experiments at the SEES APS beamlines during 2024-3, we encourage you to contact the beamline scientists for the stations you're interested in using for clarity regarding what will be feasible. You may submit a proposal through the new Universal Proposal System at https://ups.servicenowservices.com/ups after the call is announced. The timeline for startup and commissioning activities is still fluid, so we’ll be scheduling any 2024-3 experiments a few weeks in advance as we determine when the various techniques and stations will come online.