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J-PARC Project Newsletter
No. 37, July 2009
Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex under operation jointly
by the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) and
the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA)
http://j-parc.jp/index-e.html
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HEADLINES AND CONTENTS
1. [Overview]
BEAM TO NEUTRINO AND INAUGURATION CEREMONY
FROM THE FIRST RUN
THE SCOPE OF RESEARCH DIRECTIONS PUBLISHED BY USER
COMMUNITIES
NEW LAW FOR JAEA ON OPERATONAL BUDGET
BUDGET REQUEST FOR JFY2010 STARTED
2. [Accelerator Division]
SUCCESS OF EXTRACTION TO NEUTRINO TARGET FROM MR
(50GEV SYNCHROTRON)
3. [Nuclear and Particle Physics Division]
BEAMLINE FOR NEUTRAL KAON IN PREPARATION
NEUTRINO BEAM LINE COMMISSIONING AND STATUS OF NEAR
DETECTOR (ND280)
4. [Materials and Life Science Division]
THE USER PROGRAM OF 2009A STARTED FROM MAY 30, AND 18
DAYS BEAM TIME HAS BEEN PROVIDED FOR USERS BY JUNE 21.
TWO CHOPPER INSTRUMENTS HAVE MONOCHROMATED NEUTRONS
BY UTILIZING EITHER A FERMI CHOPPER OR A FAST DISK
CHOPPER FOR THE FIRST TIME.
THE REPETITION RATE MULTIPLICITY TECHNIQUE BY USING
VARIOUS INCIDENT ENERGIES IN ONE TIME-FRAME HAS
DEMONSTRATED ITS HIGH PERFORMANCE FOR INELASTIC
SCATTERING EXPERIMENTS.
NEUTRON EXPERTS VISITED MLF ON 7 JULY AND ENJOYED A FULL
DAY TOUR
5. [Nuclear Transmutation Section]
REVIEW OF PARTITIONING AND TRANSMUTATION TECHNOLOGY
INCLUDING ADS
6. [Safety Division]
THE SAFETY INSPECTION OF NEUTRINO EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY
SUCCESSFULLY CONDUCTED BY NUSTEC
7. [Announcement of Symposia and Meetings]
8. [Editorial Note]
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1. [Overview] by Shoji NAGAMIYA
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BEAM TO NEUTRINO AND INAUGURATION CEREMONY
As reported earlier, we succeeded in accelerating proton beams
to produce neutrino beams at the fast extraction line on April 23.
This brings the total to four beams from J-PARC: neutron beams in May
of 2008, muon beams in September of 2008, kaon beams in February
of 2009 and the neutrino beams in April of 2009.
To celebrate this achievement we organized an inauguration
ceremony of J-PARC on July 6. Many important people joined this
ceremony. We had about 900 people participating. Over 60
eminent figures from abroad joined this ceremony. Two ministers,
many from Diet members, past presidents of JAEA, past Directors of the
Institute of Nuclear Studies at University of Tokyo, top managers
from economical societies, past Presidents of the University of Tokyo,
the local Governor, Mayor of Tokai Village, President of Science Council
of Japan, etc. also joined the ceremony. Two Nobel Laureates, Makoto
Kobayashi and Masatoshi Koshiba, also participated in it. The Director
General at CERN and the Undersecretary of DOE joined via Video.
FROM THE FIRST RUN
During these two months, May and June of 2009, we have had
nice runs for muons and neutrons. Many data have been
accumulated through these two months. Already the first paper
(from muon) was accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters.
More analysis will take place in the summer of this year.
THE SCOPE OF RESEARCH DIRECTIONS PUBLISHED BY USER
COMMUNITIES
The User Communities finally published a 50-page document to
describe the scope of the research direction for J-PARC.
The communities participating in this document are:
1) high-energy physics, 2) nuclear physics, 3) neutron science,
4) muon science, 5) nuclear transformation, 6) industry and 7)
accelerator. Individual descriptions for seven different areas
are given first and, then, the chapter was concluded by the
description of the first five years, the second ten years and beyond
for the entire J-PARC.
Professor Taku Yamanaka (Osaka Univ.) is the chair of this
committee. This document will provide us with the most useful
guideline for the future of the J-PARC. It was distributed widely in
the community. English publication (at least part of it) is under
discussion.
NEW LAW FOR JAEA ON OPERATONAL BUDGET
A new law was passed by the Congress to grant the
operation scheme including the operational budget for the portion
of J-PARC built by JAEA. This new law was created for the purpose
of allowing a broad usage of J-PARC, since JAEA does not carry
the function of a user program as a mission of JAEA. By having this
new law, the J-PARC will be completely open to universities,
institutions, internationals and industries.
Accordingly, the JAEA portion of the operational budget shall
be controlled directly by the Government from JFY2011.
The law is effective from July 1st of 2009. The KEK portion
of the operational budget remains the same as it was.
BUDGET REQUEST FOR JFY2010 STARTED
The budget request for JFY2010 has been started.
J-PARC will request 7 cycle operations (5 cycle operations this
fiscal year while a full-year operation amounts to 9 cycles).
In addition, many requests for construction of equipment have
been sent to the Government, including 1) energy recovery
of Linac, 2) ultra-slow muon channel, 3) power upgrade for main
ring, 4) high momentum beam line for hadrons, 5) neutron
instrumentations, etc.
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2. [Accelerator Division] by Ainosuke ANDO
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SUCCESS OF EXTRACTION TO NEUTRINO TARGET FROM MR
(50GEV SYNCHROTRON)
The 30 GeV proton beam in MR was successfully extracted to the
neutrino target by " FX: fast extraction " (one turn extraction by
kickers
and septum-magnets) at 19:09 on April 23, and this operation was
approved by the Radiation Safety Authority of the Government on
May 28 through passing the official investigation.
MR can accept eight bunches (or four batches) from RCS
(3GeV Rapid Cycle Synchrotron). After checking the hardware status
and the timing system, six-bunch operation in FX mode was successfully
demonstrated with 4.3E12 protons in the single-shot operation and found
no problems. This intensity corresponds to 5.6 kW, if operated at
1/3.6Hz.
MR will be operated in six-bunch mode from this October and much effort
will be extended to serve the beam with the maximum power of 100 kW
at 1/3.6 Hz operation. This can be achieved when the RFQ (Radio
Frequency Quadrupole linac) is ready to produce 300kW in the RCS.
Because of the RFQ problem, the MLF (Materials and Life Science
Facility) user operation with 20kW beam power was performed with the
cyclic operation of 2-day user-operation and one-day RFQ conditioning
from May 29 to June 22. The MR tuning was also done in parallel with
the MLF user operation. After the improvement of the vacuum system
and a new conditioning scheme of the RFQ, stable 100kW operation is
expected from this October (next common use run).
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3. [Nuclear and Particle Physics Division]
by Tadashi NOMURA, Toshifumi TSUKAMOTO, Yoshikazu YAMADA
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BEAMLINE FOR NEUTRAL KAON IN PREPARATION
A high intensity accelerator opens up an opportunity to study
extremely rare processes, which may include contributions from
physics beyond the Standard Model. A study of the CP-violating
rare decay, a long-lived neutral kaon (KL) decays into a neutral
pion and two neutrinos, is scheduled to be performed in the
Hadron Experimental Hall. The KOTO experiment, whose name stands
for "K0 at TOKAI", is now constructing a new neutral beamline.
Since the predicted probability of the process is an order of
10ppt (parts per trillion), a challenge of the experiment is to
reduce backgrounds below that level. A well-collimated beam is
one of the key points in the experiment. The beamline was
carefully designed to prevent unwanted beam particles from
invading the detector region surrounding the beam. It basically
consists of two long collimators (4m and 5m) and a sweeping
magnet between them. Fabrication of the beamline components
has been done in the last fiscal year, and now, the construction of
the beamline is ongoing. It will continue during this summer,
and will be ready to operate by this autumn. As a first step of
the experiment, various properties of the beamline, such as a
beam profile, KL yield and spectrum, and neutron yield, will be
measured in the autumn and winter machine times in FY2009.
The 2009 Kaon International Conference (KAON09) was held at
EPOCHAL TSUKUBA from June 9 to 12 with 69 participants
(including 35 from abroad). Recent topics and future prospects
related to K mesons were discussed. Participants also took a tour
of J-PARC and looked at the construction of the beamline.
See the conference web site: http://kaon09.kek.jp/
NEUTRINO BEAM LINE COMMISSIONING AND STATUS OF
NEAR DETECTOR (ND280)
After the first beam in April, the second beam commissioning of
the neutrino beam facility commenced on May 22nd and continued
until May 28th. In this period, the functionality of the beam monitors
and the response function of the magnets were checked. Based on
this investigation, the orbit and profile of the primary proton beam
were fine-tuned. Radiation safety inspection by the authority of the
government was undertaken during continuous beam operation on
May 28th. The inspection was passed resulting in the granting of a
license to operate the neutrino facility with up to 1.2 kW beam power.
Higher beam power operation with a fully equipped target station
is planed following the installation of the second and third horns
during
this summer. Components of the near detector, ND280, are currently
arriving at J-PARC. Newly delivered detectors are the pi-zero detector
(P0D), one of two Fine Grained Detector (FGD) modules and one of
three Time Projection Chamber (TPC) modules.
Assembly, checks and tests are underway. One on-axis neutrino monitor
(INGRID) module is already under operation in the Neutrino Monitor (NM)
building and the remaining modules under assembly will be installed in
July and August. The Side Muon Range Detector (SMRD) installation
has been ongoing since March.
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4. [Materials and Life Science Division] by Yujiro IKEDA
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THE USER PROGRAM OF 2009A STARTED FROM MAY 30, AND 18
DAYS BEAM TIME HAS BEEN PROVIDED FOR USERS BY JUNE 21.
TWO CHOPPER INSTRUMENTS HAVE MONOCHROMATED
NEUTRONS BY UTILIZING EITHER A FERMI CHOPPER OR A FAST
DISK CHOPPER FOR THE FIRST TIME.
THE REPETITION RATE MULTIPLICITY TECHNIQUE BY USING
VARIOUS INCIDENT ENERGIES IN ONE TIME-FRAME HAS
DEMONSTRATED ITS HIGH PERFORMANCE FOR INELASTIC
SCATTERING EXPERIMENTS.
NEUTRON EXPERTS VISITED MLF ON 7 JULY AND ENJOYED A
FULL DAY TOUR
1.Neutron Source
The proton beam transport line, the conventional facility and the
control system were operated normally during beam operation
runs from April to June. The hydrogen pump to supply super-critical
hydrogen to moderators was tripped several times by abnormal
vibration of the rotor shaft. During the summer shutdown period,
an investigation will be carried out on the event. Corrosion damage
was found on the electroformed nickel piece attached on the outside
surface of the mercury target container, which is used to measure
the vibration induced by protons bombarding the mercury target.
The corrosion might be caused by nitric acid, which is a radio-chemical
product from residual air with moisture in a He-gas atmosphere.
Introduction of a He-gas circulation system with moisture absorbent
has been installed to prevent the corrosion. A spare target vessel is
being fabricated. The beam window of the mercury target vessel was
welded without any detrimental residual strain along welding lines.
2. Neutron Science
Commissioning of instruments has been carried out quite well
in May and June. Two chopper instruments have monochromated
neutrons by utilizing either a Fermi chopper or a fast disk chopper
for the first time, and we have obtained quite good results.
Especially the achievement of a Repetition Rate Multiplicity
technique by using various incident energies in one time-frame
has been demonstrated, and we are convinced that such a new
technique can give great efficiencies for inelastic scattering
experiments. Not only the cutting edge technology of the
instruments, but an event recording technique, which has been
introduced to Materials and Life Science Facility (MLF) for the
first time as a data acquisition system for a neutron facility as
was taken in Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) too, turns out to
be of great importance for achieving the new innovative technique.
As for diffraction instruments, most of them have accumulated
statistics from standard samples in preparation for full analysis for
real measurements. In addition to the currently operational/under-
construction instruments, a construction budget has been funded
for two more instruments. These are a back-scattering instrument,
DNA, and a wide-Q SANS (Small-angle Neutron Scattering),
Taikan, and will be operational in 2011. Now 15 instruments have
been funded and 8 of them are operational and open for users.
3. Neutron Optics and Detectors
A 1-dimensional elliptic mirror has been developed in combination
with a supermirror (m=4) coated with ion-beam sputtering and
precise elliptic surface figured with numerically-controlled local wet
etching process. Wideband neutrons of lambda were focused with
focal spot size down to 0.25 mm, peak intensity gain up to 6
without significant diffuse scattering.
A new photon-counting two-dimensional detector system using
new ZnS/B scintillator sheets and wavelength-shifting (WLS) fiber
arrays has been installed and is in stable operation at a single-crystal
neutron diffractometer for biological and chemical crystallography
named "iBIX". An ENGIN-X-type linear scintillation neutron detector
system has been installed and is in stable operation for the
engineering materials diffractometer "TAKUMI".
4. Neutron Experts Visited MLF
After the J-PARC Inaugural Ceremony in Tokyo, neutron experts
visited MLF on 7 July and enjoyed a full day tour. Those are Andrew
Harrison, Ruep Lechner, Thom Mason, Feri Mezei, Abdul Aziz Mohamed,
Christina Oyon, Je-Geun Park, Mike Rowe, Rita Russina, Andrew Taylor,
John White and other distinguished guests.
5. Muon Science
From March to April, 2009, we have installed the front-end
components of the super-omega muon beam channel adjacent to
the graphite production target in the 3 GeV proton beamline.
They consist of the radiation resistant solenoid magnet made of
MIC, which has a large acceptance of 400 msr to capture surface
muons efficiently and a gate valve having a kapton window to prevent
condensation of tritium on the superconducting curved solenoid
magnet. Those installations were successfully completed and
evacuation tests through the pillow seal vacuum connection
demonstrated no leakage finally. From May to June, 2009, we have
had a beam commissioning and four users programs to use pulsed
muon beam at MUSE at the D1 and D2 area.
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5. [Nuclear Transmutation Section] by Tsujimoto Hirofumi
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REVIEW OF PARTITIONING AND TRANSMUTATION TECHNOLOGY
INCLUDING ADS
The Japan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) reviewed the
Partitioning and Transmutation (P&T) technologies including the
accelerator driven system (ADS). The JAEC issued a report entitled
"Current Status and a Way Forward to Promote the Research and
Development of Partitioning and Transmutation Technologies" in April.
The report summarized that P&T technologies will contribute to the
rational design of a nuclear waste disposal system, and the research
and development should be undertaken steadily to build up basic data
for the discussion of its feasibility. For the Transmutation Physics
Experimental Facility (TEF-P) planned in the second phase of the
J-PARC project, the report recommended that it should be discussed
continuously as the integral experimental facility to study the
transmutation system not only for ADS but also for FBR (fast breeder
reactor).
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6. [Safety Division]
by Minoru TAKASAKI, Taichi MIURA and Hiroshi NAKASHIMA
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THE SAFETY INSPECTION OF NEUTRINO EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY
SUCCESSFULLY CONDUCTED BY NUSTEC
The inspection of the Neutrino Experimental Facility (NU) during
the
beam operation was conducted on May 28, 2009, by the Nuclear Safety
Technology Center (NUSTEC): the inspection items were measurements
of ambient doses around the radiation control areas and at the
boundary of the J-PARC facility. In this inspection, the fast extraction
part of 50GeV proton synchrotron (MR) ring and the arc line for the
superconducting magnets were included. The designed energy and
power were 30 GeV and 1.2 kW, respectively. The beam intensity was
about 10% of the design value. All measured doses did not exceed the
dose limits specified by law owing to the sufficient shielding having
been
designed properly.
The 7th Radiation Safety Committee of J-PARC met on
June 2, 2009, to discuss the application of 3GeV Rapid Cycling
Synchrotron, Materials and Life Science Facility, MR, Nuclear and
Particle Physics Facility (HD), and NU. The main change points are
the enlargement of two secondary beam lines in HD: K1.8 and KL,
and the beam-intensity upgrade in MR and NU.
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7. [Announcement of Symposia and Meetings]
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8. [Editorial Note]
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Editorial Board:
Masatoshi ARAI (chair): masatoshi.arai@j-parc.jp
Yujiro IKEDA: ikeda.yujiro@jaea.go.jp
Nobuo OUCHI: ouchi.nobuo@jaea.go.jp
Shinya SAWADA: shinya.sawada@kek.jp
Toshifumi TSUKAMOTO: toshifumi.tsukamoto@kek.jp
English Editor: Dick MISCHKE mischke@triumf.ca
Secretary: Chikako KAIBARA kaibara.chikako@jaea.go.jp
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