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J-PARC Project Newsletter
No. 47, Jan. 2012
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]
MOST RECENT STATUS OF J-PARC.
BUDGET FOR JFY2012.
J-PARC REVIEW TO BE HELD FROM JANUARY OR FEBRUARY.
2. [Accelerator Division]
MAGNIFICENT RECOVERY FROM THE EARTHQUAKE
3. [Nuclear and Particle Physics Division]
RECOVERY FROM EARTHQUAKE DAMAGES AND PREPARATION FOR BEAM IN FEBRUARY.
T2K STATUS: RECOVERY FROM EARTHQUAKE DAMAGES AND NEUTRINO BEAM LINE
COMMISSIONING.
4. [Materials and Life Science Division]
REPLACEMENT WITH A NEW TARGET VESSEL.
THE FIRST NEUTRON BEAM AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE WAS OBTAINED.
RECOVERY OF MLF INSTRUMENTS HAS BEEN NEARLY COMPLETED.
1ST AOCNS WAS HELD ON NOV. 20-24 AT TSUKUBA, JAPAN.
AN ON-LINE REFRIGERATION SYSTEM FOR THE MUON D-LINE WAS RECOVERED
FINALLY.
5. [Nuclear Transmutation Section]
MEETING REPORT
6. [Safety Division]
APPLICATION FOR LICENSES OF THE OPERATION OF THE WHOLE FACILITIES
WERE GRANTED BY MEXT.
7. [Announcement of Symposia and Meetings]
8. [Editorial Note]
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1. [Overview] by Shoji NAGAMIYA
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MOST RECENT STATUS OF J-PARC
In May, 2011 we planned to restore beams at J-PARC by the end of
December, 2011. Since then, all the J-PARC people have worked day
and night and even for weekends. Finally, on December 9th the switch
for the Linac was turned on, and the first proton beam after the
earthquake was produced.
After the beam restoration in the Linac, beams were injected to
the 3 GeV synchrotron on the 17th, and then extracted to the
Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility on the 22nd. On the
same day, the beams were also injected to the 50 GeV synchrotron, and
on the 24th beams were extracted to the Neutrino Experimental Facility.
The beam current at 3 GeV reached up to 300 kW, but we started to
take beams at 100 kW for the neutron Hg target due to a safety reason.
After the confirmation of a newly installed bubbler function for the
Hg target we will inject 300 kW beams. Note that we injected 200 kW
beams before the earthquake. The beam tests at the 50 GeV were
conducted at up to 60 kW in December 2011. We will gradually
increase the intensity for the 50 GeV this year.
Meanwhile, the third supplemental budgets to J-PARC were
approved at the end of November as follows:
Supplemental for JAEA: 14.2 Oku Yen
Supplemental for KEK: 73.4 Oku Yen (building repair 2.6 Oku
included)
The budget to JAEA will be for us. By using this money we start
to repair roads, cranes, walls, doors, etc. in addition to improvement
of equipments.
Last of all, we would like to express appreciation to many
members at JAEA and KEK for their constant supports to us. For
example, while electric supply has been very restricted in Japan after
the earthquake, the 55 MW electric usage at J-PARC was allowed by
TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) because of incredible efforts of
our parent institutions.
BUDGET FOR JFY2012
Our funding agency, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
and Technology (MEXT), informed us the final approved budgets for the
next fiscal year of 2012 on December 24th. These budgets are now
waiting for the final Diet approval (but usually no change occurs).
According to MEXT, the budget summary for J-PARC is as follows:
Operational to JAEA: 83.50 Oku Yen (JAEA = 5.29 + Gov Direct = 78.21)
Operational to KEK: 66.17 Oku Yen
Equipment to JAEA: 14.90 Oku Yen (Linac Upgrade 14.5 + Neutron 0.4)
Improvement of Linac + 3 GeV: 16.92 Oku Yen
(three-year fund, last year)
To CROSS (neutron): 7.02 Oku Yen
Among these, the Operational budget for JAEA allows 8-cycles
operation whereas the Operational for KEK allows 6-cycles operation,
where 9-cycles corresponds to a full 200-day operation. Practically,
by squeezing some budgets, we will try to run as much as a full cycle
of operation with these funds. Concerning the equipment budgets, the
fund for the Linac Upgrade to 400 MeV is the final year in JFY2012
out of the four-year fund. On the other hand, the equipment fund for
the neutron facility of 0.4 Oku Yen is the first year out of the
three-years fund of a total of 16 Oku Yen.
We will do our best to provide beams to the J-PARC users as much
as possible based on the approved budgets.
J-PARC REVIEW TO BE HELD FROM JANUARY OR FEBRUARY
The selection of the review committee members has been recently
completed, and the members will be officially appointed by the
Government in the near future. It is most likely the review will
start at the end of January or in February. The review issues will
be: 1) past achievements, 2) effects from the earthquake, 3) a roadmap
toward power-up to 1 MW, 4) future plans, 5) organization for
operations, etc. as informed in the previous Newsletter.
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2. [Accelerator Division] by Kazuo HASEGAWA
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MAGNIFICENT RECOVERY FROM THE EARTHQUAKE
The complex was extensively damaged by the earthquake.
We had many items of concern to meet the beam test schedule in
December for each accelerator, for example, repair of air
conditioning system and inspection of the fire hydrants at the linac,
healthiness of the main magnet power lines at the 3 GeV Rapid Cycling
Synchrotron (RCS), and commissioning of the new injection kicker at
the Main Ring synchrotron (MR).
The restoration work was accomplished on schedule or slightly
ahead of the schedule thanks to the effort of staff members and
support. We started beam tuning at the linac on the 9th of December,
which was 3 days ahead of the announced schedule. The beam was
injected to the RCS on 17th. The 3 GeV acceleration was confirmed on
the 20th. The 3 GeV beam was injected to the Materials and Life
Science Experimental Facility (MLF) and the MR on the 22nd. On the
same day, acceleration to 30 GeV and fast extraction to the beam dump
were successfully carried out. The MR delivered beam to the neutrino
hall on the 24th. A full beam test was successfully completed by the
morning of the 27th.
We successfully accelerated the beam current almost the same as
before the earthquake: the peak current of 15 mA and the pulse
length of 500 micro-seconds at the linac. Several issues, however,
have been revealed. The beam loss level and trip rate at the linac
acceleration cavities are higher than those before the earthquake.
There are still a lot of repairs at the linac building in particular.
Some work will be carried out in parallel to user operation.
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3. [Nuclear and Particle Physics Division] by Y.SATO & T.TSUKAMOTO
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RECOVERY FROM EARTHQUAKE DAMAGES AND PREPARATION FOR BEAM IN FEBRUARY
(by Y.SATO)
Recovery work from the earthquake damages in the Hadron
Experimental Facility is now at the final stage. Realignment and a
full excitation test of primary beam line magnets in the beam-
switching yard had been completed before the Main Ring (50-GeV
synchrotron) started the beam commissioning on December 22nd. In the
Hadron Hall, realignment of all secondary beam lines (K1.8BR, K1.8,
and KL) except for K1.1BR is almost completed. A full-excitation test
of primary and secondary beam line magnets is planned early in
January. Enclosing the primary beam line in the Hadron Hall will be
completed by the end of January.After recovery work, the Hadron Hall
will be ready for 50 kW beam.
Experimental groups are also working hard for recovery of
equipments and preparation for the next beam time. At the K1.8 area,
the Superconducting Kaon Spectrometer (SKS) was successfully cooled
down and a full-excitation test up to 2.45 Tesla was successfully
completed on November 16th. Detectors around SKS have been
reconstructed. At the K1.8BR area, a system check of the liquid 3He
target and reconstruction of detectors are ongoing after shielding
blocks in the area were cleaned up from the experimental area. At
the KL area, the KOTO group has finished realignment of the neutral
kaon beam line. They are preparing detectors toward the engineering
run in the next beam time. The first beam after the earthquake for
Hadron Experimental Facility is scheduled in February.
J-PARC Hadron Hall User's Association (HUA) workshop on the
future of the Hadron Hall was held at KEK Tsukuba campus on October
23rd. The midterm plans to carry out the experiments in the present
Hadron Hall and the future plan for the extension of the Hadron Hall
werediscussed. Please visit the web site below for details.
http://kds.kek.jp/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=8237
T2K STATUS: RECOVERY FROM EARTHQUAKE DAMAGES AND NEUTRINO BEAM LINE
COMMISSIONING (by T.TSUKAMOTO)
The repair work of the J-PARC neutrino facility was completed by
the middle of December to be ready for the neutrino beam line
commissioning from December 24, 2011. P0D (pi-zero detector)
electronics in the T2K off-axis near detector ND280 was repaired and
ND280 became ready for commissioning.
Proton beam extraction to the neutrino beam line was started
from December 24 and commissioning work was continued until the early
morning of December 27. Various studies with beam for monitors were
carried out and then beam tuning was done.
There was no difficulty for stable 30kW operation with 4.7 x
10^12 ppb (protons per bunch) x 4 bunch and 7.6 x 10^16 protons are
exposed to the target in this commissioning. The running conditions
such as beam loss along the beamline and beam orbit are quite well
reproduced with respect to the situation before the earthquake. On
-axis near detector INGRID observed 197 neutrino events which is
consistent with expectations.
Unfortunately, a serious trouble in the horn power supply arose
on December 22 during final operation test. Switching devices called
IGBTs in the horn power supply were broken. Therefore commissioning
was carried out without horn operation. During January we plan to
take beam with the horn off in order to make beam studies for high
power operation and various systematic studies using the near neutrino
detectors. We are working to recover the power supply and aim to
restart the full experiment with the horn operation from March.
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4. [Materials and Life Science Division] by Masatoshi ARAI
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REPLACEMENT WITH A NEW TARGET VESSEL.
THE FIRST NEUTRON BEAM AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE WAS OBTAINED.
1. Neutron Source
PIE (Post Irradiation Examination) specimens with a diameter of
50 mm were cut out from the first mercury target vessel successfully.
Some spots likely related to the pitting damage were recognized by
visual inspection. A newly designed target vessel with a bubbling
mechanism was successfully installed for the first time by remote
handling operation in 7 days.
The magnets and the beam monitors in the proton beam transport
line have been realigned precisely, whose positions were substantially
affected by the quake. The conventional facilities resumed
continuous operation without any serious problems and the interlock
systems were examined thoroughly for beam operation. The cryogenic
hydrogen circulation system has been operated successfully at the
20 K operation condition, after recovering from the earthquake
damage. The structural integrity of complex pipelines of moderators
was confirmed under thermal loading condition.
On December 22, the first proton beam after the earthquake was
successfully delivered to the mercury target in the Materials and
Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF). On December 23, the
spectral flux and its spatial distribution in the neutron beam of
BL10 (NOBORU) in a 1 Hz operation were confirmed. No obvious effect
of the earthquake was observed.
RECOVERY OF MLF INSTRUMENTS HAS BEEN NEARLY COMPLETED.
1ST ASIA-OCEANIA CONFERENCE ON NEUTRON SCATTERING (AOCNS) WAS HELD
ON NOV. 20-24 AT TSUKUBA, JAPAN.
2. Neutron Science
Many of beamline front shields have been brought out, realigned
and brought back before the first proton beam was delivered on
December 22. Most of the shielding and instruments taken away from
the 'west' annex building were brought back after the sunken floor
was elevated by the concrete injection method. In the two 'east'
annex buildings, some amount of concrete was also injected to fill
the earthquake-origin void space under the buildings. Installation
of supermirror guide tubes of BL19 (TAKUMI) and BL08 (SuperHRPD) is
continuing.
The call for proposals of the 2012A period was closed, and 123
neutron proposals have been submitted. The submitted proposals will
be reviewed by the Neutron Science Proposal Review Committee, and
adoption or rejection of each proposal will be informed to the
applicant by the end of the fiscal year.
The 1st AOCNS was held on Nov. 20-24, 2011 at Tsukuba, Japan.
A total of 587 scientists from 17 countries took part in the
conference, and it was really successful to show the power of
neutron researches in the Asia-Oceania region and the future
directions. The 2nd AOCNS will be held in Sydney, Australia, 2015.
http://j-parc.jp/MatLife/en/meetings/1stAOCNS
Prof. Hiroshi Ohmoto, NASA Astrobiology Institute & Pennsylvania
State University, visited on Dec. 15, and talked about astrobiology.
AN ON-LINE REFRIGERATION SYSTEM FOR THE MUON D-LINE WAS RECOVERED
FINALLY.
3. Muon Science Facility (MUSE)
The superconducting solenoid magnet associated with an online He
refrigerator system is one of the most important beamline components
for the J-PARC MUSE Decay-Surface Muon Line (D-line). Since the on-
line refrigerator system was damaged seriously, due to a settlement of
about 10 cm around at 1.5 m outside the MLF building, we have not had
any operation for 9 months. After fixing the system by the end of
October, we tried to restart it. Unexpectedly, we failed to start
it, due to a trouble of the level meter of the liquid He. However,
we finally succeeded to have a stable operation of the He online
system in the middle of December, anticipating the muon beam
operation at the D-line.
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5. [Nuclear Transmutation Section] by Hiroyuki OIGAWA
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MEETING REPORT
The 9th International Workshop on Asian Network for Accelerator-
Driven System (ADS) and Nuclear Transmutation Technology was held at
Hengyang, P.R.China, on Dec.5-7, 2011. The number of participants was
46 including 9 overseas researchers from 3 countries (Japan, Korea,
Russia). In the workshop, there were 21 oral presentations concerning
research topics on innovative nuclear systems including ADS, reactor
physics, nuclear data, lead-bismuth technology, and proton
accelerators.
At the workshop, the decision was made to exchange information
concerning the promotion of the ADS technology among representatives
of participating countries continuously. The next workshop will be
held at the Research Reactor Institute of Kyoto University in the late
autumn of 2012.
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6. [Safety Division] by Taichi MIURA and Hiroshi NAKASHIMA
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APPLICATION FOR LICENSES OF THE OPERATION OF THE WHOLE FACILITIES
WERE GRANTED BY MEXT.
The application for the operation of all the facilities was
granted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and
Technology (MEXT) on Nov. 25.
The main topics are the new secondary beamline in the Materials
and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF).
The 12th Radiation Safety Committee of J-PARC met on Dec. 2 and
inspected the status of the equipments on the secondary beam lines of
the experimental facilities (MLF, Hadron Experimental Facility (HD)).
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7. [Announcement of Symposia and Meetings]
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1) 3rd MLF Symposium, Jan. 19-20, 2012, Tokai, Ibaraki (Language:
Japanese)
http://j-parc.jp/MatLife/ja/meetings/MLFsympo/index.html
2) Neutron Advisory Committee (NAC-2012), Feb. 8-10, 2012, Tokai,
Ibaraki (Language: English)
http://j-parc.jp/MatLife/en/index.html#
3) Nikko Joint Conference between 10th International Conference on
Quasielastic Neutron Scattering (QENS 2012) & 5th Workshop on
Inelastic Neutron Spectrometers (WINS 2012), Sep. 30 - Oct. 4,
2012, Nikko, Japan (Language: English)