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J-PARC Project Newsletter
No. 49, July. 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]
J-PARC RUNS COMPLETED AT THE BEGINNING OF JULY.
J-PARC REVIEW COMPLETED.
BUDGET REQUEST TO BE SUBMITTED.
SHOJI NAGAMIYA STEPS DOWN FROM THE DIRECTOR'S POSITION.
2. [Accelerator Division]
STATUS OF ACCELERATOR FACILITIES：STABLE BEAM OPERATION TO USERS.
3. [Nuclear and Particle Physics Division]
FIRST EXPERIMENT WITH KAON BEAM READY.
T2K STATUS: COLLECTED DATA FOR THE DELIVERED POT > 3.0 x 10^20.
4. [Materials and Life Science Division]
STEADY 200 KW OPERATIONS AT JAPAN SPALLATION NEUTRON SOURCE (JSNS).
SIXTEEN INSTRUMENTS ARE OPERATED FOR GENERAL USERS (2012A).
220 GENERAL NEUTRON PROPOSALS HAVE BEEN SUBMITTED FOR 2012B PERIOD.
MUON SOURCE DEDICATED FOR THE INTENSE ULTRA-SLOW MUON BEAMLINE,
CALLED THE U-LINE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
6. [Nuclear Transmutation Section]
REVISION OF PROGRAM FOR TRANSMUTATION EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY.
7. [Safety Division]
THE 13TH RADIATION SAFETY COMMITTEE OF J-PARC MET IN JUNE.
8. [Announcement of Symposia and Meetings]
9. [Editorial Note]
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1. [Overview] by Shoji NAGAMIYA
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J-PARC RUNS COMPLETED AT THE BEGINNING OF JULY
All scheduled runs after the restoration of J-PARC at the end of
December went relatively smoothly and the J-PARC facility was shut
down for summer maintenance in the very early morning of July 2nd.
The maximum intensity for RCS was 275 kW whereas that for MR?Fast
extraction was about 200 kW. Slow beam from MR was in the vicinity
of 6 kW for users (14 kW for the test).
J-PARC REVIEW COMPLETED
The 3rd Government review of the J-PARC Center started at the
beginning of March and ended practically at the end of May of 2012.
The major focus of this review was to establish the future five-
year plan. The first priority goal of the neutrino facility and all
accelerators is to achieve the maximum specified powers; namely 1 MW
for RCS in 2015 and 0.75 MW for MR in 2017. For Neutrons the beam
lines have been reasonably well installed thus far (20 lines out of
23) so that the extensive efforts will be made to improve the
environments for sample preparations and data analyses. For Muons,
in contrast, two beamlines still remain unoccupied without any
financial guarantees.
Therefore, the best effort for the coming five years for the Muon
group will be to fill up these two beamlines, called S and H. Hadron
and mu-e conversion experiments require a high-momentum beamline and
the installation of this beamline will be the first priority item for
Institute of Particle and Nuclear Physics at KEK.
Concerning JAEA, two major proposals are discussed. One is the start
of ADS (Accelerator Driven Transmutation) and the other is the
construction of a research building and an isotope storage building.
If these beams and facilities are actualized, the J-PARC would be the
full J-PARC, as we planned before.
BUDGET REQUEST TO BE SUBMITTED
The JFY2013 Budget was requested based on the recommendations by
the Review Committee. From JAEA two budget requests for the
construction of a new research building and the initiation of the ADS
were submitted to the Government as high priorities. On the other
hand, two budget requests from KEK are in negotiation: the expansion
of muon and hadron beam lines. In addition, the operational budget
went up primarily due to an unexpected increase in the electricity
bills by 31% by TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company).
SHOJI NAGAMIYA STEPS DOWN FROM THE DIRECTOR'S POSITION
On July 1, I stepped down from the Director's position. It was
already 15.5 years ago when I returned to Japan from Columbia
University, to initiate the J-PARC Project. It was a long time, but
concurrently, a short time. The construction of J-PARC was approved
in 2001, four years after my return. The construction was completed
in 2009 after 8 years of construction. Last year in 2011, we
had significant problems due to the Earthquake. We recovered from
them.
There were four major reviews. The first one was held before
the project started. The second one was when the neutrino program
was approved and the third one was to set an operational budget.
The fourth one, which was the most recent one, was to set a future
five-year plan.
The five-year plan is now almost established and this is a good
time for me to resign from the Director position. We had an
excellent team and I deeply appreciated this nice team. From the
next issue of the Newsletter, a new Director, Yujiro Ikeda, will
write this section.
Thanks again for all the readers of this article.
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2. [Accelerator Division] by Kazuo HASEGAWA
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STATUS OF ACCELERATOR FACILITIES：STABLE BEAM OPERATION TO USERS
The J-PARC accelerator facilities had been operating
successfully since the resumption of the user operation after the
earthquake. But as described in the previous newsletter, we had to
stop operation due to the linac klystron power supply failure on
March 22. The user operation to the Material and Life Science
Experimental Facility (MLF) and the neutrino facility (NU) was
resumed on April 8. The beam powers were 210 kW and 170-180 kW for
the MLF and the NU, respectively.
With operation, the Main Ring (MR) faced an issue of increased
beam loss from resistance degradation at the injection
kickers. To limit the beam loss, the beam power was gradually
reduced with the degradation. The damaged resistors were replaced on
the scheduled maintenance days, and the beam power was restored to
180 kW. The resistors were exchanged periodically thereafter to
minimize the reduction of the beam power. Improvement of the
resistors against the degradation is underway.
The extraction current from the ion source was increased from
17.5 to 20 mA and 190 kW continuous operation to the NU was performed
on May 10. The beam power, however, was reduced to 160 kW shortly
to limit the radioactive level in the exhaust gas at the machine
building No.3 of the MR. In spite of the limitation, we demonstrated
further performance improvement, such as 200 kW operation for 6 hours
and beam extraction of 220 kW equivalent intensity with single shots.
Some measures which suppress radioactive gas leakage are planned
during the summer shutdown, and after the autumn operation,
continuous operation of 200 kW or more is anticipated.
The beam of the MR was switched from the NU to the hadron (HD)
facilities on June 9. After the tuning, user operation was started at
3.5 kW as in February. Beam tuning to 6 kW was performed in parallel,
and 6 kW user operation with extraction efficiency of 99.5 % was
started on June 21. Beam power for the MLF was raised from 215 to 275
kW for 3 days at the end of the run, which was a prelude to the beam
power increase demonstration.
In the morning of July 2, user operation was ended as scheduled
and we went into the summer shutdown. Operating hours from April 5 to
July 2 was 2,104 hours. The deliverable times to the MLF, NU and HD
were 1,646, 1,058 and 376 hours, and availabilities were
approximately 94%, 90% and 94%, respectively.
SUCCESS OF RFQ#2 HIGH POWER TEST
Although it was prepared to start high power test for the Radio
Frequency Quadrupole linac (RFQ) of No. 2 (backup RFQ) by the end of
March, 2011, it was interrupted by the earthquake disaster. The
restoration and maintenance work was carried out although the crane
was not available in the test stand area. We started a high power
test on April 24. After the conditioning and full duty factor
operation, 24 hour continuous operation was performed. As a result,
the total trip number of 3, which occurred in the first 5 hours and
no trips in the following 19 hours, it was demonstrated to be a
stable RFQ. A higher beam current RFQ for the 1MW @ 3GeV goal is
under construction on the basis of this RFQ fabrication process.
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3. [Nuclear and Particle Physics Division]
by F. SAKUMA, M. NARUKI & T.TSUKAMOTO
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FIRST EXPERIMENT WITH KAON BEAM READY (by F. SAKUMA & M. NARUKI)
The E15 experiment, which is the day-1 experiment at the K1.8BR
beam line, was ready to take physics data in June 2012. The physics
goal for the E15 experiment is to search for the anti-kaonic nuclear
bound state, K-pp cluster, which may open a new door to the
production of the high density nuclear matter that cannot be realized
in the normal environment. Construction of the spectrometer was
completed in May 2012, and the first engineering run was successfully
carried out in run #43. All detector components have shown expected
performances; a liquid 3He target system was irradiated by beam
particles for the first time and worked well, decay of Lambda ->
p + pi- was successfully reconstructed by a Cylindrical Detector
System, and forward going neutrons and gamma rays were detected and
identified by a forward neutron time-of-flight counter array. The
total number of 1.9x10^9 anti-kaons were shot on the liquid 3He
target, and 3.4x10^7 triggered events were recorded. The first-stage
production run of E15 with 30 kW*week integral proton beam will be
expected in Nov. 2012 - Jun. 2013 with more than 10kW beam-power.
The K-pp was also searched for in the d(pi+,K+) reaction in the
E27 experiment at the K1.8 beam line. It is a unique way to produce
the K-pp state through a doorway state of the Lambda(1405). The pilot
run was successfully completed. The detector commissioning was
carried out at the KL beam line by the KOTO group. In addition, two
test experiments for the detector R&D towards the future experiments
were performed at the K1.1BR beam line.
T2K STATUS: COLLECTED DATA FOR THE DELIVERED POT > 3.0 x 10^20
(by T.TSUKAMOTO)
Following the successful commissioning of the neutrino beam the
T2K experiment has started normal data acquisition from March as
reported in the previous issue. The neutrino beam operation and the
T2K data acquisition has been carried successfully until June 9, when
the J-PARC MR operation was switched from the fast extraction for the
neutrino beam to the slow extraction for the hadron facility.
After recovery from the earthquake on 2011.Mar.11, data was
collected stably and the T2K collected data for the delivered POT
(proton on target) > 3.0 x 10^20 in total from the beginning of T2K
( with POT = 1.43 x 10^20 before earthquake).
Two important international conferences were held. One is
NEUTRINO 2012 ( the 25th International Conference on Neutrino Physics
and Astrophysics, http://neu2012.kek.jp/ ) held at Kyoto in June and
another is ICHEP 2012 ( the 36th International Conference on High
Energy Physics, http://www.ichep2012.com.au/ ) in July. At ICHEP 2012
the result with data for the delivered POT = 3.01 x 10^20 was
presented, where evidence of electron neutrino appearance at T2K was
reported based on the detection of 11 electron-neutrino events at T2K.
Maintenance of the neutrino beam line and the T2K near detector
ND280 is being carried after neutrino beam operation was stopped on
June 9. The T2K will resume the experiment from October.
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4. [Materials and Life Science Division] by Masatoshi ARAI
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STEADY 200 KW OPERATIONS AT JAPAN SPALLATION NEUTRON SOURCE (JSNS)
1) Neutron Source
Very steady operations of reliability 93% at 200 kW, which is
the same power as that just before the earthquake, have been
continued up to now since the new fiscal year started in April.
Improvements in accelerator together with one in the cryogenic
moderator system have realized the achievement, i.e. an
introduction of an additional helium gas purification unit.
Fabrication of the new mercury target vessel is going on. The
separable structure into two pieces was newly developed for the
target vessel. Only the top one is disposed on replacement, resulting
in reduction of waste volume and storage space. A test module of a
Cold-Charcoal-Trap (CCT) system was installed in the Off-Gas-Process
System in order to efficiently treat the radioactive gas products
generated in the mercury loop.
SIXTEEN INSTRUMENTS ARE OPERATED FOR GENERAL USERS (2012A)
220 GENERAL NEUTRON PROPOSALS HAVE BEEN SUBMITTED FOR 2012B PERIOD
2) Neutron Instruments and Science
Instruments damaged severely by the earthquake, Takumi
(BL19, Engineering Diffractometer) and SuperHRPD (BL08, High
Resolution Powder Diffractometer), have completed commissioning
successfully, and now accept general users of the 2012A period.
The new instruments, DNA (BL02, Inverted Geometry Spectrometer),
TAIKAN (BL15, Small Angle Neutron Scattering), SHARAKU (BL17,
Vertical Reflectometer) and SENJU (BL18, Single Crystal
Diffractometer), were also commissioned successfully and accept
general users of the 2012A period. PLANET (BL11, High Pressure
Diffractometer) has started commissioning of the large six-axis
press. SPICA (BL09, Special Environment Powder Diffractometer) has
started commissioning from June.
For the user operation of the 2012B period (November, 2012 to
March, 2013), over 220 general neutron proposals have been submitted
including the proposals to Ibaraki prefecture instruments. After
evaluation by four referees for each proposal, the review in the
neutron science proposal review committee is scheduled to be held
on August 2nd.
MUON SOURCE DEDICATED FOR THE INTENSE ULTRA-SLOW MUON BEAMLINE,
CALLED THE U-LINE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION
3) Muon Science Facility (MUSE)
We are constructing a new type of muon source dedicated for the
intense ultra-slow muon beamline, called the U-line. It consists
of a large acceptance solenoid made of mineral insulation cables
(MIC), a superconducting curved transport solenoid magnet and six
sets of superconducting focusing Helmholtz magnets associated with
three sets of plus/minus 400 kV DC separators. Compared with the
conventional beamlines, the large acceptance of the front-end
solenoid with a large acceptance of 400 mSr allows us to capture the
highest intensity pulsed muon beam in the world. The front-end
solenoid captures 5 x 10^8 surface muons/s in the vicinity of the
muon target. With an approximate transport efficiency of 40%, we can
focus 2 x 10^8 surface muons/s on the tungsten (W) target of
55 x 70 mm^2.
Recently, we managed to complete installation of the water
manifolds, U-line shielding blocks, U-line shielding area, U-line
cabins, a dedicated cat's-walk, and a laser cabin. During the summer
shut-down period of 2012, we are planning to complete all the
installation of the superconducting curved transport solenoid and
the superconducting focusing magnets, for the commissioning of the
U-Line this October.
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6. [Nuclear Transmutation Section] by Toshinobu SASA
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REVISION OF PROGRAM FOR TRANSMUTATION EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY
Management of spent nuclear fuel is one of the important issues
even though the nuclear energy utilization will be decreased in
Japan. Especially after the Fukushima disaster, the partitioning-
transmutation technology is getting much attention as a fascinating
option of safe and efficient nuclear waste management. In Europe,
design and development activities of experimental Accelerator-Driven
System (ADS) named MYRRHA are underway toward its construction
starting in 2016. The latest design of MYRRHA adopts a target with a
proton beam window instead of a windowless type. The interface
between an accelerator and a subcritical core is recognized as one of
key challenges for ADS design.
According to these backgrounds, we have started revising the
construction plan for Transmutation Experimental Facility to realize
transmutation technology promptly in cooperation with domestic and
international ADS RD&D programs. For instance, construction schedule
of ADS Target Test Facility (TEF-T) to establish the lead-bismuth
alloy spallation target engineering is moved up. The data to support
the full-power operation of MYRRHA will be taken at TEF-T. Design
works and licensing procedure to build Transmutation Physics
Experimental Facility (TEF-P) will be performed simultaneously.
From this fiscal year, we started designing of a spallation
target unit for TEF-T including ancillary facilities, preliminary
tests for off-beam mock-up target experiments, and preparation for
validation of target instruments.
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7. [Safety Division] by Taichi MIURA and Hiroshi NAKASHIMA
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THE 13TH RADIATION SAFETY COMMITTEE OF J-PARC MET IN JUNE
The 13th Radiation Safety Committee of J-PARC met on June 18,
2012 and discussed the alterative application of J-PARC facilities.
The main topics are 1) the power-up for the all of the facilities
(except Hadron Experimental Facility), 2) the new secondary beam line
(muon) in the Materials and Life Science experimental Facility(MLF).
The intended power-up level at this time is 300kW for user operation
in MLF. And the Neutrino Experimental Facility aims to 450kW
operation.
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8. [Announcement of Symposia and Meetings]
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1) Nikko Joint Conference between 10th International Conference on
Quasielastic Neutron Scattering (QENS 2012) & 5th Workshop on
Inelastic Neutron Spectrometers (WINS 2012), Sep. 30th - Oct. 4th,
2012, Nikko, Japan (Language: English)
http://j-parc.jp/researcher/MatLife/en/meetings/QENS-WINS2012/index.html
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9. [Editorial Note]
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Editorial Board:
Toshifumi TSUKAMOTO (Chair): toshifumi.tsukamoto@kek.jp
Nobuaki TAKAHASHI: nobuaki.takahashi@j-parc.jp
Takashi ITO: itou.takashi@jaea.go.jp
Dick MISCHKE (English Editor): mischke@triumf.ca
Junko BEANBLOSSOM (Secretary): beanblossom.junko@jaea.go.jp
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