=====================================================================
J-PARC Project Newsletter
No. 52, April. 2013
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
=====================================================================
HEADLINES AND CONTENTS
1. [Overview]
STABLE USER OPERATIONS WITH 300 KW AT THE MATERIALS AND LIFE SCIENCE
EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY (MLF) AND 230 KW AT THE NEUTRINO EXPERIMENTAL
FACILITY (NU) WERE ACHIEVED.
A USER BUILDING, THE HIGH MOMENTUM BEAM LINE AND COHERENT MUON
ELECTRON TRANSITION (COMET), THE MUON S-LINE, WERE FUNDED.
2013 J-PARC INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE (IAC) WAS HELD.
2. [Accelerator Division]
STATUS OF THE ACCELERATOR FACILITIES.
ACCELERATOR TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE (A-TAC) MEETING.
3. [Particle and Nuclear Physics Division]
HADRON FACILITY TASTING THE FRUIT OF 15 KW IS NOW READY FOR 50 KW.
T2K STATUS: DATA TAKING STARTED AFTER END-YEAR AND NEW-YEAR SHUTDOWN.
4. [Materials and Life Science Division]
300 KW OPERATION STEADILY CONTINUED DURING 2012B PERIOD.
SIXTEEN INSTRUMENTS OPERATED FOR GENERAL USERS ON 2012B PERIOD.
140 GENERAL NEUTRON PROPOSALS APPROVED FOR 2013A PERIOD.
THE MUON ADVISORY COMMITTEE (MAC).
5. [Nuclear Transmutation Section]
TRANSMUTATION EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY (TEF) DESIGN: FINISHED FIRST
LONG-RUN LOOP TEST AND BUILDING A USER COMMUNITY.
6. [Safety Division]
THE SAFETY INSPECTION OF THE MATERIALS AND LIFE SCIENCE EXPERIMENTAL
FACILITY (MLF) WAS CONDUCTED BY THE NUCLEAR SAFETY TECHNOLOGY CENTER
(NUSTEC).
THE APPLICATION FOR LICENSES OF THE OPERATION OF THE WHOLE FACILITIES
WAS GRANTED BY THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, CULTURE, SPORTS, SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY (MEXT).
7. [Editorial Note]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1. [Overview] by Yujiro IKEDA
---------------------------------------------------------------------
STABLE USER OPERATIONS WITH 300 KW AT THE MATERIALS AND LIFE SCIENCE
EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY (MLF) AND 230 KW AT THE NEUTRINO EXPERIMENTAL
FACILITY (NU) WERE ACHIEVED
We have been carrying out a very challenging but stable operation
since this January. It is notable to have realized stable operation
at the highest beam power ever, 300 kW at MLF, 230 kW at NU, and 15 kW
at the Hadron Experimental facility(HD). The other exciting
achievement is to obtain 539 kW power at Rapid Cycling Synchrotron
(RCS) with 181 MeV Linac energy. It indicates a high possibility to
achieve 1.0 MW power at the RCS after the Linac beam energy upgrade
to 400 MeV with installation of Annual Coupled Structure (ACS).
The J-PARC operation schedule for FY2013 has been fixed. Although
we secure a half-year for the upgrade work of accelerators to realize
the operation with 1 MW, we have assured to provide 6 cycles (132
days) in total for user programs. It should be also noted to extend the
user operation to the end of July especially for the T2K experiment to
realize the 5 sigma significance for electron-neutrino appearance.
A USER BUILDING, THE HIGH MOMENTUM BEAM LINE AND COHERENT
MUON ELECTRON TRANSITION (COMET), THE MUON S-LINE, WERE FUNDED
The FY2013 budget for J-PARC has been officially allocated. It
allows us to provide the 6 cycles for users and the installation work
for the Linac upgrade to achieve 1 MW power. The total budget amount
is approximately 159 Oku-Yen (hereafter OY: i.e., ~1 million USD):
92.6 OY for JAEA and 66.2 OY for KEK.
The supplementary budget of FY 2012 (85.3 OY in total) was also
provided to J-PARC mainly as a part of the economic stimulus plan to
recover the Japanese economy by the new government. It enables us to
start construction of a new user building (20 OY), a primary high
momentum proton beam line and COMET (35 OY), a part of the muon S line
(6 OY), etc.
2013 J-PARC INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE (IAC) WAS HELD
The J-PARC International Advisory Committee (IAC) meeting was
held to get comments and advice on the entire J-PARC operation and
management achievements as a user facility and the 5 year-plan of the
"Intensity Frontier". Prior to IAC, Neutron Advisory Committee (NAC),
Muon Advisory Committee (MAC), and Accelerator Technical Advisory
Committee (A-TAC) were also held in February.
Professor J. W. White of Australian National University was
invited as a speaker and the Second J-PARC colloquium was held on
February 27. He gave a very interesting and encouraging talk entitled
"Translational Research with Neutrons and X-rays".
---------------------------------------------------------------------
2. [Accelerator Division] by Kazuo HASEGAWA
---------------------------------------------------------------------
STATUS OF THE ACCELERATOR FACILITIES
A new operation cycle (Run #46) was started with the startup of
the linac on January 4th, 2013.
User operation with 11 kW started on January 7th for the Hadron
Experimental Facility (HD). After the tuning of the Main Ring
synchrotron (MR), the beam power was increased to 15 kW. The beam use
of the MR was switched to the Neutrino Experimental Facility (NU)
with 220 kW on January 17th as scheduled. For the Materials and Life
Science Experimental Facility (MLF), user operation with 280 kW
started on January 14th.
There was a sign of a filament break at the ion source and we
announced that to users in advance on February 20th. That night, it
caused the filament break as expected. Although it took 8 hours to
exchange the filament, it was a good experience to know a sign of the
lifetime for mitigating the loss of operation time for users. Run #46
ended on the morning of February 22 as planned.
The extraction current from the ion source was slightly
increased. Beams with 300 kW for the MLF and 230 kW for the NU were
regularly delivered in the following Run #47. Although the beam
destination was changed to the HD on March 7th and user operation was
performed with 15 kW, the beam was stopped by a trouble at one of the
slow extraction septum magnets. We gave up continuing the operation
which was planned until 25th, and the schedule was changed to the NU
and restarted beam supply on March 19th. Deformation of one of the
septum conductors was clearly observed. Off-line repair work is being
carried out to reinstall it in late April.
Though operation is almost continuous, the operation in the
fiscal year (FY) 2012 ended on March 31th and new RUN cycle started
from April 1st. The tentative statistic shows that the user hours and
availabilities in the FY2012 (from April until March) are 4,664 hours
(93%) for the MLF, 3,322 hours (89%) for the NU and 906 hours for the
HD. (These availabilities include beam trips due to troubles in the
experimental facilities. Because the HD user time was cancelled by the
septum trouble, definition of availability is under discussion.)
ACCELERATOR TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE (A-TAC) MEETING
The 12th A-TAC meeting was held at the Ibaraki Quantum Beam
Research Center (IQBRC) on February 21 to 23. Nine committee members
attended and about 20 reports were presented such as status,
commissioning results and performance upgrade. The committee
deliberated the improvement points, directivity, etc., and gave
recommendations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
3. [Particle and Nuclear Physics Division]
by A. TOYODA, M. NARUKI and T.TSUKAMOTO
---------------------------------------------------------------------
HADRON FACILITY TASTING THE FRUIT OF 15 KW IS NOW READY FOR 50 KW
(by A. TOYODA and M. NARUKI)
A slow extraction operation to the Hadron Hall was performed with
the primary beam intensity of 15 kW in March. Two experiments, E14 and
E15, started to collect statistics with their full setups.
Unfortunately the user run ended earlier than scheduled due to an
accelerator trouble.
For the secondary beam production, a target made of gold has been
newly installed to cope with the beam power of 50 kW. The kaon beam
intensity was measured at the K1.8 beam line which was equipped with
double-stage electrostatic separators. The intensity of 180 k/spill
was realized with a ratio of kaons to pions standing at 2.6.
Increasing power of the slow extraction beam enables us to do a
wide variety of high statistics experiments at the Hadron Facility.
However it also causes radiation damage to the intensity monitor.
Originally the Secondary Emission Chamber (SEC) was used as an
intensity monitor, which was stably operated at the beam power of a
few kW. A new Switch Yard Intensity Monitor (SYIM) has been installed
at the switch yard, which is composed of triple coincidence
scintillators aiming at a vacuum window in the primary beam line. A
good linear response up to 50 kW is confirmed and a small progressive
reduction in efficiency is expected. An uncertainty of the SYIM
counting rate is a little bit higher than the SEC at an order of 10
kW, but it is expected to reach an accuracy of 1 % level at 60 kW.
For higher intensity, radiation shields to suppress the single
counting rate are scheduled to be installed.
T2K STATUS: DATA TAKING STARTED AFTER END-YEAR AND NEW-YEAR SHUTDOWN
(by T.TSUKAMOTO)
MR started operation for SX (Slow EXtraction) after end-year and
new-year shutdown until Jan.17, then switched operation for FX (Fast
EXtraction), i.e. neutrino beam line. Beam power was gradually
increasing from 220 kW to 230 kW (the end of Mar.) by MR beam tuning.
The neutrino beam line, the near detector ND280 and SK (Super-
Kamiokande) have been operating stably and T2K has accumulated data
corresponding about 18.8 x 10^19 POT (Proton On Target) from Jan. by
the end of Mar. (about 6.07 x 10^20 POT in total). Such stable
accelerator operation can deliver 8 x 10^20 POT by the end of July
which is the lowest POT estimated to get the 5-sigma result of
electron-neutrino appearance.
In Feb. T2K released a new result of muon-neutrino disappearance
based on the data 3.01 x 10^20 POT, which gives the world best
precision measurement of the neutrino mixing angle theta_23. The
results were presented at several winter conferences such as Lake
Louise Winter Institute 2013 http://www.physics.ualberta.ca/Research/
LLWI.aspx and Rencontres de Moriond 2013 http://moriond.in2p3.fr/ .
---------------------------------------------------------------------
4. [Materials and Life Science Division] by Masatoshi ARAI
---------------------------------------------------------------------
300 KW OPERATION STEADILY CONTINUED DURING 2012B PERIOD
1) Neutron Source
The gas injection system for supplying helium gas micro-bubbles
into the mercury target has been running without any troubles,
resulting steady operation with the proton beam power of 300 kW for
the 2012B period from January to March, 2013.
The laser Doppler vibrometer has been also working well and
showed a clear effect of the gas micro-bubbles injection that the
displacement velocity of the mercury target vessel decreased with
increasing the population of the micro-bubbles in the target.
Fabrication of spare components such as a proton beam window,
beryllium blocks for the reflector assembly and helium gas supplying
system were completed and delivered to the Materials and Life Science
Experimental Facility (MLF). A target vessel having a double-walled
structure with a narrow channel at the proton beam injection portion
is in production.
SIXTEEN INSTRUMENTS OPERATED FOR GENERAL USERS ON 2012B PERIOD
140 GENERAL NEUTRON PROPOSALS APPROVED FOR 2013A PERIOD
2) Neutron Instruments and Science
User operation for the 2012B period (the second half of FY2012)
has been started on November 21, and accepted general proposals for 16
neutron instruments are being carried out until the end of March.
The 196 proposals for the 2013A period were reviewed by the
Neutron Science Proposal Review Committee, and finally approved by
the MLF advisory board; 140 general neutron proposals were approved.
The Neutron Advisory Committee (NAC) was held on February 14-15
at the Ibaraki Quantum Beam Research Center (IQBRC) with seven
committee members; K. N. CLAUSEN (PSI), M. W. KIM (KAIST), Y. KIYANAGI
(Hokkaido University). D. A. NEUMANN (NIST), R. ROBINSON (ANSTO),
U. STEIGENBERGER (ISIS-RAL, Chairperson), and W. WAGNER (PSI).
NAC received updated reports on neutron source, neutron
instruments, devices, software, sample environments, infrastructure
and user support, etc. The NAC highly appreciated the efforts in every
issue and made recommendations toward the future direction.
THE MUON ADVISORY COMMITTEE (MAC)
3) Muon Science Facility (MUSE)
The Muon Advisory Committee (MAC) was convened on February 22-23,
2013, at the Tokai campus of KEK to review the operation of MUSE and
the related technical developments in the past year. This was the
first meeting with renewed members for the new term (2012-2014);
H. Amitsuka (Hokkaido University), T. Azuma (RIKEN), K. Jungmann
(University of Groningen, on leave), E. Morenzoni (PSI, Chairman),
Y. Nozue (Osaka University, on leave), F. Pratt (ISIS-RAL), and
J. E. Sonier (Simon Fraser University).
In the executive summary presented at the end of the review
session, the committee expressed congratulations to all people
involved at MUSE for the work done in 2012; great progress achieved
in the development and upgrade of spectrometers and the rotating
target project, in addition to construction of new beam lines.
Meanwhile, the committee also expressed concern about the shortage of
manpower in views of the multitude of tasks to be made, urging
necessary action to the stakeholders.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
5. [Nuclear Transmutation Section] by Toshinobu SASA
---------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSMUTATION EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY (TEF) DESIGN: FINISHED FIRST
LONG-RUN LOOP TEST AND BUILDING A USER COMMUNITY
For the construction of Transmutation Experimental Facility
(TEF), soundness of the primary lead-bismuth loop is one of the
critical technical issues. There is no experience to run lead-bismuth
loop longer than 3000 hours continuously in Japan Atomic Energy
Agency (JAEA). From last August, we continued long-run test for
continuous operation of lead-bismuth loop using JAEA Lead-Bismuth
Loop #2 (JLBL-2). The operation parameters were set to 300 degree-
centigrade of lead-bismuth temperature and 2 m/s of flow speed at
main pipe. After several hundred hours, fluctuation of the electro-
magnetic flowmeter was observed, even though we supply a constant
electric power to electro-magnetic pump. At the beginning of March,
5000 hours of continuous operation was successfully done except the
signal from electro-magnetic flowmeter. The output signal from
electro-magnetic flowmeter dropped from 2 m/s to 0.2 m/s. The
alternative measuring method using ultrasonic wave will be performed
using JLBL- 4 loop.
To establish the user community for TEF, the first workshop to
discuss the multipurpose usage of TEF-T was held on March 18th, 2013.
More than 80 persons from research institutes, Universities and
companies attended to the workshop. Four kinds of proposals for
multipurpose use which includes industrial application were
introduced. Through the discussion, information exchange using e-mail
was approved as a first step to build a user community.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
6. [Safety Division] by Taichi MIURA and Hiroshi NAKASHIMA
---------------------------------------------------------------------
THE SAFETY INSPECTION OF THE MATERIALS AND LIFE SCIENCE EXPERIMENTAL
FACILITY (MLF) WAS CONDUCTED BY THE NUCLEAR SAFETY TECHNOLOGY CENTER
(NUSTEC)
The safety inspection of MLF was conducted on Jan. 31 by NUSTEC.
The inspection items were the shielding structures of the new
secondary beam line (muon) and measurements of ambient doses around
the radiation control areas. MLF passed the inspection without any
issues.
THE APPLICATION FOR LICENSES OF THE OPERATION OF THE WHOLE FACILITIES
WAS GRANTED BY THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, CULTURE, SPORTS, SCIENCE
AND TECHNOLOGY (MEXT)
The application for licenses of the operation of the whole
facilities was granted by MEXT on Mar. 26. The main topic is the
installation of the test bench for the new Radio Frequency Quadrupole
(RFQ) in the LINAC facility, which is designed to allow the higher
current beam and will be replaced in the accelerator tunnel.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
7. [Editorial Note]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
In case you do not wish to receive this Newsletter in the future,
please send an email to news-l-ctl@ml.j-parc.jp and simply write one
sentence in the body of the message as unsubscribe.
if you wish to receive, write one sentence in the body of the
message as subscribe.
you can get a help with a sentence of "help" in the body.
Information on the project can be also obtained at the web site:
http://j-parc.jp/index-e.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Editorial Board:
Toshifumi TSUKAMOTO (Chair): toshifumi.tsukamoto@kek.jp
Kaoru SHIBATA: shibata.kaoru@ jaea.go.jp
Takashi ITO: itou.takashi@jaea.go.jp
Dick MISCHKE (English Editor): mischke@triumf.ca
Junko BEANBLOSSOM (Secretary): beanblossom.junko@jaea.go.jp
++++++++++++++++End of Letter++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++