| ■ J-PARC News - February 2014 (Issue #106) |
| All the facilities in J-PARC had suspended their operation since 23 May of last year when the radioactive material leak accident occurred at the Hadron Experimental Facility. The J-PARC Center reconstructed the safety management system and promoted measures against recurrence of similar accidents. Those actions were reviewed by the External Expert Panel extensively and the walk-through surveys were completed by the authorities of Ibaraki Prefecture and the regional municipalities by the end of last year. The Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) was confirmed to be safe for beam operation and the user programs were resumed on 17 February. MLF accepted news media for interview and filming on that day. |
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| ●Studies to Confirm Performance of the Linac and 3-GeV Synchrotron (Mid-December 2013 to Mid-February 2014) |
| During the period when J-PARC operation was halted, the accelerator team installed new ACS (Annular Coupled Structure) accelerating cavities to raise the beam energy to the design value of 400 MeV. Performance study using a proton beam began on December 16 of last year. In the middle of January, the acceleration of a beam with a current of 5 mA was verified, and thereafter acceleration studies were conducted with an increased beam current. From the end of January, performance testing was conducted at the 3-GeV synchrotron. At the test, the capability to accelerate the injected proton beam at 400 MeV to 3 GeV and that to extract the accelerated beam to MLF were confirmed. |
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| ●Moving toward Construction of Transmutation Experimental Facility |
| At the meetings in 2013 of the Working Group for Evaluating Partitioning and Transmutation Technologies of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the members discussed a development plan of the Transmutation Experimental Facility to be constructed at J-PARC and a roadmap for future R&D and presented the direction for future facility development. Recently, the member of the House of Representative, Ai Aoki visited the planned construction site in J-PARC and also observed the lead-bismuth (Pb-Bi) target test equipment for the accelerator-driven system (ADS) of the Transmutation Experimental Facility. |
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| ●Facility Updates |
| (1) At the Linac, the ion source was replaced on the 12th to prepare for the resumption of user operations at the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) . Also, beam acceleration test was started at the test stand for the next Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) as part of efforts to increase the beam current. |
| (2) At the 3-GeV synchrotron (RCS) , tests were conducted to confirm operation parameters accompanying the increase in injection beam energy. |
| (3) At MLF, general maintenance work of equipment was conducted, including the mercury circulation system. The machine protection system and the personnel protection system were verified for sound operation and the beamline shields were restored. |
| (4) At the 50-GeV synchrotron, four more collimators, which adjust the beam profile at the injection section, were installed. |
| (5) At the Neutrino Experimental Facility, work to replace magnetic horns is underway to prepare for resumption of user operations in or after April. |
| (6) At the Hadron Experimental Facility, renovation is being conducted to prevent recurrence of similar accidents. |
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| This meeting was held on February 10-11 at KEK Tokai Bldg. No. 1. To begin, Division Head of MLF, Masatoshi Arai, provided an overview of the facility, and reported progress over the last year. Also, due to the radiation accident, which occurred last year at the Hadron Experimental Facility, there were reports on the current situation in various areas-particularly approaches to facility safety, approaches to safety assurance, organizational operation, and development of safety systems. As a special feature of this meeting, two members described efforts to ensure safety at their organizations: SNS (Spallation Neutron Source) in the US, and ANSTO (Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization) in Australia. |
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| ●Third International School for Strangeness Nuclear Physics 2014 (February 13-19, J-PARC and Tohoku University) |
| On February 13-19, the International School for Strangeness Nuclear Physics 2014 was held by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency and other organizations for students and young researchers from both inside and outside Japan. The first half up to the 15th was held at J-PARC, and the second half was held at Tohoku University. This year marked the third time this school has been held. There were about 50 participants, and lectures and other activities were held in the conference hall of the Advanced Science Research Center of the Nuclear Science Research Institute. At the opening session on the first day (13th) , Yujiro Ikeda, Director of the J-PARC Center, provided a basic overview of the center, and on the 14th, Megumi Naruki, Associate Professor at Kyoto University (originally from J-PARC/KEK) spoke on topics such as strangeness research scheduled to be done at J-PARC. In a tour of the J-PARC facilities, the participants visited the MLF, the Central Control Room and the Neutrino Experimental Facility. |
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| ●The 13th Japan-Korea Meeting on Neutron Science (February 16-20; Buyeo, South Korea) |
| This meeting is held every year, alternating between Japan and South Korea. These two countries are centers for research on neutron utilization in Asia, and participants exchange information on the current status and research results of experimental facilities operated by each country. At this meeting, there were a total of 42 oral and poster presentations, and 80 participants (22 from Japan, 56 from South Korea, 1 from the US, and 1 from the UK) . |
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