| ■ J-PARC News - November 2015 (Issue #127) |
●KEK Professor Emeritus Koichiro Nishikawa and K2K/T2K CollaborationReceive Breakthrough Prize (November 8, U.S.A.) |
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| Professor Emeritus Koichiro Nishikawa (former Deputy Director, J-PARC) and the K2K/T2K Collaboration (the international collaborative experiment group) received the 2016 Breakthrough Prize for Fundamental Physics for their achievements in the discovery of and research on neutrino oscillation. In this research, neutrino oscillations are observed by artificially creating neutrinos in an accelerator, and Dr. Nishikawa has led the effort in all phases, from research planning to experiments. In the T2K experiment, neutrinos emitted from the J-PARC Neutrino Experimental Facility in Tokai Village are observed at the Super-Kamiokande (SK) neutrino detector located in the Kamioka town, Hida city, Gifu Prefecture. The collaboration was the first in the world to discover that muon neutrinos change into electron neutrinos during flight. The Breakthrough Prize was established in 2012, and is a set of international academic awards. It is awarded in three fields : fundamental physics, life sciences and mathematics. Prof. Nishikawa and K2K/T2K collaboration were awarded jointly with other 4 experiments including 2 experiments in Japan, namely the Super Kamiokande Experiment and KamLAND. |
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| At the Fiscal 2015 JAEA President's Awards, Research and Development Prizes were awarded in recognition of achievements pertaining to the completion of revolutionary research. Dr. Hideaki Hotchi and eight other researchers from the J-PARC RCS Beam Commissioning Team of Accelerator Section II received a prize for "Development of High-Intensity Proton Beam Adjustment Techniques at the J-PARC RCS (3 GeV synchrotron)." In addition, Dr. Takanori Hattori and Dr. Asami Sano from the Neutron Science Section and Dr. Hiroshi Arima of Tohoku University (from the PLANET Construction Group) received a prize for "Realization of High-Temperature/High-Pressure Neutron Diffraction Experiments using a High Pressure Neutron Diffractometer (MLF, BL11)." |
| - List of J-PARC related recipients of Research and Development Prizes |
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| ・Achievement : "Development of High-Intensity Proton Beam Adjustment Techniques at the J-PARC RCS" |
| ・Group name : J-PARC RCS Beam Commissioning TeamHideaki Hotchi, Fumihiko Tamura, Pranab Kumar Saha, Yoshihiro Shobuda, Masanobu Yamamoto, Masahiro Nomura, Masahiro Yoshimoto, Hiroyuki Harada, Kodai Okabe (Acceleration Section II) |
| ・Achievement : "Realization of High-Temperature/High-Pressure Neutron Diffraction Experiments using a High Pressure Neutron Diffractometer" |
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| Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. has completed "Advanced 4D Nano Design"-a new material development technology which enables major improvement in tire performance characteristics which are difficult to simultaneously achieve : fuel economy, grip and wear-resistance. This was achieved by working jointly with RIKEN, the J-PARC Center, other research institutions, Tokyo University, and others, making collaborative use of the neutron instruments at J-PARC's Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF), the SPring-8 large synchrotron radiation facility, and the "K" supercomputer, and carrying out detailed analysis and computer simulations of structure and mobility inside rubber for tires. Recently, these results were combined to realize the new technology. By utilizing the "stress control technology" created using this new technology, a successful effort was recently made to develop concept tires equipped with "Wear-Resistant Max Tread Rubber" which improves wear-resistance by 200% while maintaining fuel economy and grip. |
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| On the Hall #1 side of the Muon Experimental area in the MLF, there are plans to construct an S beamline for experiments to measure information inside materials using the muon spin rotation and relaxation method (μSR) employing slow muons. Construction of the S1 experimental area, which will serve as the first branch point of the four experimental areas, has been underway since the end of fiscal 2013. From the end of October, beam extraction adjustment was performed on the S line, and when positrons which changed due to the decay of muons were measured through a muon life measurement experiment, it was confirmed that muons are produced at the muon rotating target, and that the beam has arrived at the S1 experimental area. |
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| Construction of a Transmutation Experimental Facility (TEF) is planned at J-PARC in order to conduct research and development contributing to volume and hazard reduction of high-level radioactive waste using an accelerator-driven system (ADS). Following on the first meeting in July of last year, the second meeting of the TEF Technical Advisory Committee (T-TAC) was held on October 28-29. After an explanation of the committee's mission by Naohito Saito, Director of the J-PARC Center, there were reports from the persons engaged in TEF development on the current status of facility design, and work on underlying technologies such as lead-bismuth handling technology. The committee members made many useful suggestions and pointed out issues for future facility development. After that, the committee members visited the planned site for TEF construction, and toured test instruments such as the liquid lead-bismuth loop in the High Temperature Engineering Test Building of the Nuclear Science Research Institute. The committee members exchanged views regarding the equipment. |
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| Meetings of the Asia ADS Network have been held every year since the first meeting in Japan in 2003. These are a forum where persons involved with ADS development from Japan, China and South Korea can exchange information on each country's research and development in areas such as accelerators, subcritical reactor cores, fuels and fuel cycles. Due to the R&D progress situation, it was decided to hold a general meeting every other year, and to hold topical meetings focusing on specific topics in years when a general meeting is not held to facilitate more in-depth discussion of the specific topics. This year, the first Asia ADS Topical Meeting was held at J-PARC, focusing on the topic of "lead-bismuth handling technology". There were four participants from Korea and one from China, and as the invited speaker, Professor Juergen Konys of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany) spoke on the steel corrosion behavior of liquid lead-bismuth and R&D to curb that behavior in Germany. Later, there were presentations on the R&D situations in Japan, China and Korea, and an exchange of views on future R&D issues and cooperation to resolve them. After the meeting, the participants toured test instruments such as the liquid lead-bismuth loop in the High Temperature Engineering Test Building of the Nuclear Science Research Institute. They asked questions and exchanged views regarding the equipment and its operation. |
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| The fiscal 2015 J-PARC Safety Audit was carried out by two outside auditors (with expertise in safety, human engineering, and radiation science/engineering). The audit was attended by the center director, deputy director, managers of each facility and other staff. There were reports on the current status of safety management and safety efforts at each facility, and interviews were conducted by each auditor. After this, there was an on-the-spot investigation of the MLF Experimental Facility, and at the end the auditors provided general comments and suggestions. In their comments, the auditors made important suggestions for future safety efforts such as indicating the effectiveness of information exchange for the safety efforts of each division. |
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| At the J-PARC Center, training has previously been carried out assuming a fire at a radiation controlled area or similar location, or a radioactive material leak from a facility. However, in this case training was conducted for the first time with the Nuclear Science Research Institute in the area of "exposure treatment in an emergency." The main purpose of this training was to check initial response in case of an accident. It was assumed that a major exposure accident had occurred, with the accelerator operated while workers were still in the 50 GeV synchrotron (MR) tunnel. The training included initial measures for persons responding to the accident, estimation of exposure dose, and transport to a medical facility (simulated) by ambulance. In addition, the accident site command post, accident response headquarters, and the radiation management center of the support organization, established when the Nuclear Science Research Institute set up the alert system and emergency system, reviewed countermeasures while sharing information via a teleconferencing system. Simulated notification of the relevant organizations and other aspects of the training generally went well, but at the review meeting after the training, a number of points needing improvement in the future were confirmed. |
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| The MLF had been operating since October 27, but operation was stopped on November 20 due to detection of moisture in the helium layer by a sensor installed in the neutron target vessel. Going forward, tasks such as investigation/identification of the exact cause will be performed, and thus it was deemed necessary to replace the neutron target vessel for the time being, and for this reason it was decided to shut down operation of the MLF during the period until the end of December. We are very sorry to cause this trouble to all of our users. |
| As part of the J-PARC Center's efforts to stimulate the interest of children in science, a J-PARC Hello Science event on the power of electricity and magnetism was held at the 2015 Tokai Elementary School Festival (33rd Annual). Activities included learning about the difference in magnetic force of electromagnets with different thicknesses of enamel wire and number of windings, demonstrations of batteries which run through a coil wound with copper wire, and, this time, an experiment on the amazing movement of a magnet falling through an aluminum tube. The children answered the quiz questions given by the teacher, and intently watched the experiments. They were very surprised at how the battery moved by itself, and at the strange movement of the falling magnet. Models were used to simply explain J-PARC and the neutrino experiment, and the children were encouraged to use flashing LEDs to watch the flow of the accelerator proton beam, and the flow of secondary particles produced at the target of the experimental facility. |
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