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Introduction
Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) is available to national and international users for both academic research and industrial applications. The following peer review systems are introduced for fair, clear and expedient facility management as well as for corresponding to needs of users:
- International Advisory Committee
- User Consultant Committee
- Neutron/Muon Program Review Committee
- Neutron/Muon Instrument Review Committee
All nonproprietary proposals are reviewed and ranked by the Neutron/Muon Program Review Committee. The J-PARC center is responsible for the beamtime allocation of approved proposals.
Instruments at MLF
There are twenty three neutron beam extraction ports for the pulsed spallation
neutron source and four muon extraction channels for the muon target, respectively,
at MLF.
JAEA and KEK, the owner organizations of J-PARC, are constructing instruments for conducting experiments using the neutron and the muon beams.
Third parties are also allowed to construct instruments under the approval
by the Neutron/Muon Instrument Review Committee. Five instruments of JAEA
and KEK including one muon instrument and three instruments constructed
by third parties will be available for the first user program which will
start from December, 2008.
The third party who owns the instrument at MLF is obliged to manage and maintain his/her beamline instrument. Therefore, there are two categories in the beamtime management for users; one is the “J-PARC user program” which is managed by the J-PARC center and the other is the “third party’s user program”. The third party must supply a certain fraction of the full beamtime for his/her own instrument to the J-PARC center in compensation for having exclusive rights to use it.
In consequence, the “J-PARC user program” will be carried out using all
beamtime for the instruments owned by JAEA or KEK and a part of the beamtime
for those of the third parties. Proposals applied for the J-PARC user program
will be reviewed by the review system which is uniform and open to users.
Although the review system for the “third party’s user program” will be
organized separately, further study is under progress to operate it in
the same framework of the review system for the J-PARC user program.
Access modes for the MLF use
To output outstanding scientific results in responding to a variety of
needs not only of public domain users but also of instrument scientists,
flexible access modes to the instruments are prepared in MLF. There are
three basic access modes in the J-PARC user program: General use, Project use and Instrument group use. The share of the beamtime among those access modes is authorized at MLF
advisory board.
General user program
The general use provides both national and international users with an opportunity to conduct experiments using instruments of MLF.
A variety of experiments not only for academic researches but also industrial applications are acceptable. The person responsible for the proposal, principal investigator, for the general use must belong to a legal organization or entity that may be any of the following:
- public or private colleges, universities, and institutions of higher education
- public or not-for-profit research organizations
-
private companies
Post doctorial fellow is also eligible to submit proposals under the permission
of his/her manager or supervisor at home institute/organization to conduct
the research activity at MLF. Note that students or persons who do not
belong to any institution/organization are not eligible for the principal
investigator.
Project use
The project use is the access mode in which JAEA and KEK conduct their
mission oriented programs such as inclusive scientific research projects,
research programs proposed to fulfill the plans for midterm goal of JAEA,
joint research programs and contract research programs with another institute(s)/organization(s).
The experimental proposal requested for the beamtime longer than one year can be applicable for the project use.
The principal investigator for the project use is limited to the personnel belonging to either of JAEA or KEK, or the person approved by the director of the J-PARC Center.
Instrument group use
The instrument group use is dedicated to instrument scientists responsible
for the beam-line instruments.
The instrument group shall maintain and/or improve the performance of their
instrument, and conduct the leading-edge research and development which
will output maximal performance of the instrument so that MLF always can
provide users with the most superior experimental environments.
Type and Category of the proposals for the MLF use
In principle, call for the proposals for the MLF use will be conducted
periodically as “Regular proposal”. The other optional proposals, “Urgent
proposal” and “Rapid access proposal”, are also designed to respond the
importance and the quickness inherent to the proposal.
There are two categories to access to these proposals at MLF. One is the nonproprietary use in which no beamtime fee is charged for the peer-reviewed proposal as long as the user publish the result obtained through the MLF use in the open literature. The other is the proprietary use in which users can get exclusive rights to possess their results for economic benefit by paying beamtime fee to the J-PARC Center. The beamtime fee is determined on the basis of the full cost recovery.
List of access modes, types and categories of the MLF use
| Access mode |
Type of proposals |
Category of proposals |
| General use |
Regular proposal
(Called twice a year) |
Nonproprietary
Proprietary |
| Urgent proposal |
Nonproprietary
Proprietary |
| Rapid access proposal |
Nonproprietary
Proprietary |
| Project use |
Regular proposal
(Called once a year) |
Nonproprietary |
| Instrument group use |
Regular proposal
Called once a year |
Nonproprietary |
Regular proposal
The regular proposal is called periodically in a year. Users can access all access modes for
the MLF use through the regular proposal.
- Call for General use will be carried out twice in a year and the review for proposals is conducted
for individual call. The valid term of the approved proposal is six months.
If the proposal is highly important, valuable and there is special reason
to request for the research term longer than one year, it may be approved
as Long-term proposal which is valid for three years at maximum through
the review by the neutron /muon science program review committee (MLF-PRC).
The progress of the approved long-term proposal must be reviewed by MLF-PRC
every half year.
- Project use will be called once in a year. The valid term of the approved proposal is one year to three years depending upon the importance of the proposal. If the proposal requested for the valid term longer than one year is approved, the progress of the proposal must be reported to the MLF-PRC and reviewed yearly for its continuation.
- Instrument group use will be called for once in a year. The valid term of the proposal of the
instrument group use is one year.
Urgent proposal (in preparation)
The urgent proposal is specially important and valuable to be conducted
urgently in view of scientific and/or social merits.
The urgent proposal is classified as General use and the valid term will
be set short term. The proposal will be reviewed by the director of MLF
division in cooperation with the chairperson of the MLF-PRC and the person
responsible for the instrument which will be used for the proposal, and
approved by the director of the J-PARC center. After completion of the
experiment, the principal investigator of the urgent proposal must submit
an experimental report to the MLF-PRC.
Rapid access proposal (in preparation)
The rapid access proposal is classified into General use.
It will be called in a shorter period than the regular proposal, for example,
each user operation cycle. The deadline for the rapid access proposal will
be set at least one month prior to the beginning date of the operation
cycle. The valid term of the approved proposal will be the user operation
cycle for which the proposal is accepted.
The beamtime for the rapid access proposals will be allocated no more than
10 percent of total beamtime for the instruments where the fraction of
the beamtime may be different among individual instrument.
Nonproprietary use
The proposals which will be applied for the peer review process by MLF-PRC will be the nonproprietary use. The beamtime for the proposal is allocated by the J-PARC center. No beamtime fee is charged for the nonproprietary experiment as long as the user publishes the result obtained through the MLF use in the open literature.
The user is obliged to submit an experimental report as an open literature to the J-PARC center within 60 days from the next day after the completion date. The experimental report will be included and published in the MLF annual report.
Proprietary use
Users conducting a proprietary experiment shall have the exclusive rights
to own results obtained through the MLF use. The beamtime fee based on
the full cost recovery will be charged.
Proposals for the proprietary experiment are excluded from the peer review
process by the MLF-PRC. The J-PARC center, however, reviews safety aspects
and technical feasibilities of the proposed proprietary experiment.
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