J-PARC Center October 31, 2007 Successful in accelerating a proton beam to the design energy of 3 GeV in the RCS at J-PARC   On 31 October, it was successfl in accelerating a proton beam to the design energy of 3 GeV in the new Rapid-Cycling Synchrotron (RCS) at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). This is an important step for the joint project between Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK).   The accelerator complex consists of a 181 MeV linac, a 3 GeV rapid-cycling synchrotron (RCS), and a 50 GeV synchrotron ring (MR). The RCS accelerates a 181 MeV proton beam from the proton linac up to 3 GeV and then supplies it to the MR and also supplies a neutron production target with a 3 GeV proton beam in order to produce a high intensity neutron beam. For this purpose, the RCS aims to generate a high power beam by setting 25 Hz as the repetition rate.   The beam commissioning was started in the RCS on 10 September after the long summer shutdown, and on 31 October, the proton beam was accelerated to the design energy of 3 GeV and extracted it to a 4-kW beam dump. The achievement was performed earlier than the project expected. At next step, it is planed to start the beam commissioning for MR and neutron target from next spring.

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