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                      J-PARC Project Newsletter

                 _______ No.28 , May 2007_______

Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex under construction jointly
by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and
the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK)
http://j-parc.jp/index-e.html

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HEADLINES AND CONTENTS

1. <<Overview>>

 THE THIRD REVIEW ON J-PARC BY THE GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE
 STRUCTURE OF THE J-PARC CENTER.
 HEADQUARTER OF THE J-PARC CENER WAS MOVED.
 IAC WAS HELD ON MARCH.
 BUILDING OF MATEIALS AND LIFE SCIENCE EXPERIMENTAL HALL WAS
 COMPLETED.
 VISITING KEIDANNREN

2. <<Accelerator Group>>

 THE LINAC ACCELERATED THE NEGATIVE HYDROGEN BEAM TO THE DESIGN
 ENERGY OF 181 MEV THREE MONTHS BEFORE SCHEDULED.

3. <<Control Group>>

 INSTALLATION OF NETWORK EQUIPMENTS FOR THE MAIN RING (MR) AND
 MATERIALS AND LIFE SCIENCE FACILITY (MLF) WAS COMPLETED

4. <<Nuclear and Particle Physics Group>>

 NEUTRINO BEAMLINE CONSTRUCTION IS GOING ON
 PREPARATION OF NEUTRINO HORN SYSTEM IS IN PROGRESS
 HADRON FACILITY USERS ASSOCIATION (HUA) ESTABLISHED

5. << Exotic Nuclear Science Group >>

 POLYSTYRENE THIN FILMS WERE ADOPTED TO POLARIZED RADIOACTIVE
 NUCLEI
 THE 3rd TOKAI RADIOACTIVE ION ACCELERATOR COMPLEX(TRIAC)PROGRAM
 ADVISORY COMMITTEE WAS HELD

6. <<Muon Science Group>>

 INSTALLATION OF THE M2 LINE MAGNETS WAS COMPLETED

7. <<Radiation Safety Group>>

 THE FIRST CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE OF J-PARC WAS ISSUED TO LINAC

8. <<Announcement of Symposia and Meetings>>

9. <<Editorial Note>>


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1. <<Overview>> By Shoji NAGAMIYA
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 THE THIRD REVIEW ON J-PARC BY THE GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE

     As informed you by the previous Newsletter, the MEXT organized
the third review on J-PARC. The Chair of the Committee is Professor
Inoue, who is the President of Tohoku University.

     The seven committee meetings were held since December of 2006.
The 8th meeting is scheduled on May 22. Two more meetings will be held
in June.

     The Committee has spent many hours to discuss important issues
that the J-PARC currently have. They are as follows: 1) organizational
structure at the operational stage, 2) guidelines for the usage of the
J-PARC (PAC, beam time fee, etc. ), 3) Linac energy recovery, 4) Phase
2 projects, 5) arrangements for international usage, and 6) J-PARC
operational budget. It is anticipated that the final report from the
Committee is published in July this year. I will defer the description
of the opinion by the Committee until the final report is published.
The Committee has discussed very seriously and honestly all the issues
that the J-PARC currently faces. We all appreciate the sincere
attitude of the Committee.

 STRUCTURE OF THE J-PARC CENTER .

     In April of 2007 the J-PARC Center has expanded to the size of
over 300 members. Two new Divisions, Materials and Life Science
Division and Particle and Nuclear Physics Division, were added to the
three Divisions that existed before April.

     Accordingly, we have changed the style of the meeting. Once a
week the Division Leaders meeting with about 20 members is held, and
once per two weeks the Center meeting is held by having 50 members in
J-PARC.

 HEADQUARTER OF THE J-PARC CENER WAS MOVED.

     At the end of March, the headquarter of the J-PARC Center was
moved to the Research Building No. 3 from the previous location at the
Hendel Building. The new Office is located near the Center of the
Tokai campus. Accordingly, a significant rearrangement of living areas
for the J-PARC members have been adjusted. KEK is also trying to
establish its living quarter in the outside of the Main Tokai campus.

 IAC WAS HELD ON MARCH.

     At the beginning of March the J-PARC International Advisory
Committee (IAC) was held. This time, the Committee created many useful
recommendations and comments on the structure and role of the J-PARC
Center. In addition, since the J-PARC will soon enter into the
commissioning period, the Committee also made important comments on
the commissioning work.

 BUILDING OF MATEIALS AND LIFE SCIENCE EXPERIMENTAL HALL WAS
 COMPLETED.

     At the end of April the construction of the Materials and Life
Experimental Hall was completed. This is one of the three major
experimental facilities at the J-PARC. Other two are a) Hadron
Experimental Hall and 2) Neutrino Facility, both of which are still
under construction.

 VISITING KEIDANNREN

     The J-PARC Center visited at the end of April the Nippon
Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) to appeal the usage of neutron
beams to industrial companies in Japan. The Keidanren understood it
and promised to consider positively the usage of the accelerators from
the viewpoint of industrial usage.


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2. <<Accelerator Group>> by Yoshishige YAMAZAKI
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 THE LINAC ACCELERATED THE NEGATIVE HYDROGEN BEAM TO THE DESIGN
 ENERGY OF 181 MEV THREE MONTHS BEFORE SCHEDULED.

     As already reported in the extra Newsletter, the J-PARC linac
accelerated the negative hydrogen beam to 181 MeV on January 24th.
Afterwards, effort is concentrated on the preparation for the
radiation survey by authority. The radiation level itself is not an
issue this time, since the average beam current is very low, being
limited by the power capacity of the beam dump located at the straight
downstream. Instead, the beam stability is crucial at this kind of the
early stage of the beam commissioning. The beam should be stable
during the radiation survey, which takes several hours. On the basis
of the radiation survey performed on February 21st, the certificate
was officially issued on February 27th. Without this certificate we
could not have been allowed to submit the next beam acceleration plan
to the authority in order to transport and inject the beams to the
3-GeV Rapid-Cycling Synchrotron (RCS). In other word the linac is
ready for the RCS beam commissioning, although more tuning is
required for easy injection. In this way we marked one of the most
important milestones in the linac beam commissioning. The stable RF
system and the accurate alignment are two major factors for the fast
beam tuning.


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3. <<Control Group>> by Noboru YAMAMOTO
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 INSTALLATION OF NETWORK EQUIPMENTS FOR THE MAIN RING (MR) AND
 MATERIALS AND LIFE SCIENCE FACILITY (MLF) WAS COMPLETED

     Installation of network equipments for the Main Ring (MR) and
Materials and Life science Facility (MLF) was completed and will be
integrated with the J-PARC accelerator control network after the
tuning. For the computer based control system, the information
carried by the network is blood of the system. Exchange of the
information on the network gives a life to the control system. It
integrates distributed components into the accelerators. The
information network in J-PARC will extend itself until all the
components are connected. Network devices such as routers and switches
are the pumps of the information in the network or the hearts of the
network. Unlike the hearts in the blood circulation system, the J-PARC
accelerator control system has a pair of core switches. Failure of one
of these can be backuped by another with in less than one second.


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4. <<Nuclear and Particle Physics Group>> by T. TSUKAMOTO and J. IMAZATO
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 NEUTRINO BEAMLINE CONSTRUCTION IS GOING ON

     Construction of the Target Station (TS) is going on, which
follows the 200m-long extraction beam tunnel and will contain the horn
and target system. Currently the bottom part of the underground TS is
being constructed. The installation of the frame structure which will
serve as a Helium vessel will be installed in August after the
construction of the underground TS.

 PREPARATION OF NEUTRINO HORN SYSTEM IS IN PROGRESS

     The neutrino 1st horn test was started in December last year and
has recently finished. This 1st horn was excited by 320kA pulse peak
current and total repeated number of excitation reached 850,000.
Although there were some small troubles such as water leakage, they
were fixed, and this 1st horn proved sound. Subsequently the 3rd horn
was completed and delivered to KEK. This 3rd horn will be combined
with the 1st one for testing in series operation in the same
configuration as in TS.

 HADRON FACILITY USERS ASSOCIATION (HUA) ESTABLISHED

     Approaching the completion of the Hadron Experimental Hall and
the start of beam line installation in this summer, enthusiastic users
of this facility have recently formed the Hadron Facility Users
Association (HUA) to facilitate discussions among users, to solve
problems and to promote researches in the Hadron Facility. HUA
functions also as the interests of the community negotiating with the
J-PARC management. In the first meeting held during the last JPS
meeting, about 70 people got together.


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5. << Exotic Nuclear Science Group >> by Hiroari MIYATAKE
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 POLYSTYRENE THIN FILMS WERE ADOPTED TO POLARIZED RADIOACTIVE
 NUCLEI

     Passing through tilted thin films, nuclear beams are polarized.
Instead of old carbon films, polystyrene films of about 30 nm thick
were newly adopted. The films are thinner than the carbon films, and
more films are able to be employed to generate larger polarization. A
test experiment for production of polarized RNB ( Radioactive Nuclear
Beam ) was performed with 8Li beams. Varying beam energies, number
of films and tilt angles of them, nuclear polarization were measured.
Using 15 films at a tilt angle of 70 degrees, polarization of 6% was
achieved. Feasibility test for the polarization of indium
radioisotopes has been pursued.

 THE 3RD TOKAI RADIOACTIVE ION ACCELERATOR
 COMPLEX(TRIAC) PROGRAM ADVISORY COMMITTEE WAS HELD

     The 3rd TRIAC program advisory committees were held on February
at KEK and on March at JAEA, respectively. The committees approved
seven experimental programs including three new proposals. These
programs will be performed in FY2007.


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6. << Muon Science Group>> by Yasuhiro Miyake
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 INSTALLATION OF THE M2 LINE MAGNETS WAS COMPLETED

     M2 line consists of six quadrupole magnets QM1, QM2, QN1, QN2,
QN3, QN4 and four steering magnets, X22, Y22, X23, and Y23. The
magnets were designed and fabricated based on the following design
principles. Mineral insulation cable (MIC) is used for magnets which
are likely to be irradiated by more than 400 MGy ( QN1, QN2, QN3, and
XY22 ), and polyimide is used for the magnets irradiated by less than
400 MGy ( QM1, QM2, and XY23 ). All water and electrical cables will
be connected at the top of the magnets. Any water connection is not
allowed below 4 m FL ( floor level ) utilizing a seamless cable. Plug
shield made of iron blocks are assembled on the top of magnet up to
4 m FL. Magnet assembly can be remotely guided by the guide shields
and then placed on the alignment plates equipped with the knock pins,
which allow precise positioning.
     Finally, installation of those magnets by remote handling was
completed in March, the end of JFY2006.

     The fifth J-PARC Muon Science Experimental Facility Advisory
Committee, chaired by Dr. Poutissou, so called “ MuSAC ” were held on
2007, Jan. 11-13 at KEK. The report was presented by Dr. J.M.
Poutissou to the J-PARC director on March 31st, 2007. The issued
recommendation are;
1) Must keep focused to meet the schedule for beam commissioning in
   September 2008.
2) Must have an initial muon decay channel ready at turn on.
3) Must work with the accelerator group to minimize proton pulse
   width. Also committee strongly supported the ultra slow muon beam
   line as a highest priority in phase 2.


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7. <<Radiation Safety Group>> by Taichi MIURA and Hiroshi NAKASHIMA
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 THE FIRST CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE OF J-PARC WAS ISSUED TO LINAC

     Since LINAC received the permission of regulated operation after
the inspection on October 4, 2006, by the Nuclear Safety Technology
Center (NUSTEC), the accelerator crew devoted time to achieve the
level to take the inspection during operation. The inspection was
conducted on February 21, 2007, by NUSTEC and the certificate of
compliance was granted on February 27. This was the first certificate
for the formal operation issued to J-PARC.
     The application for the operational license of the 3 GeV
synchrotron was submitted to the Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) on January 23, 2007. Then the
advisory committee was formed and the meeting was organized three
times from January till March. The last (3rd) meeting was held on
March 22 and the operational license is expected to be issued in June,
2007. The radiation controlled area is scheduled to be formed in
September, 2007.
     The 4th Expert Committee on the interlock system around
experimental area was held on February 26: the personal protection
system (PPS) was mainly discussed. The 4th Expert Committee on the
safety of the J-PARC neutrino production target was held on March 30:
the main topics were the items concerning the radiation safety system.


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8. Announcement of Symposia and Meetings
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9. <<Editorial Note>>
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Editorial Board:
Masatoshi ARAI (chair): masatoshi.arai@j-parc.jp
Toshifumi TSUKAMOTO toshifumi.tsukamoto@kek.jp
Yujiro IKEDA: yujiro.ikeda@jaea.go.jp
Nobuo OUCHI: nobuo.ouchi@jaea.go.jp
Shinya SAWADA: shinya.sawada@kek.jp
English Editor: Dick Mischke mischke@triumf.ca

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