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     J-PARC Project Newsletter
                                                     No.62, April 2016
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]

 New fiscal year of J-PARC.
 
2. [Accelerator Division]
 
 ACCELERATOR STUDY FOR HIGHER USER OPERATION PARAMETERS AND BEAM 
DELIVERY TO USERS.
 ACCELERATOR TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE (A-TAC) MEETING.

3. [Particle and Nuclear Physics Division]

 DISCUSSION ON EXTENSION OF THE HADRON EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY.
 PROF. EMERITUS KOICHIRO NISHIKAWA AND PROF. KENZO NAKAMURA GOT YOJI 
TOTSUKA PRIZE.
  STATUS OF THE COMET CRYOGENIC SYSTEM AND E34 MUON BEAM. 
 PROGRAMS OF ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETINGS.
 REPORTS FROM THE PARTICLE & NUCLEAR PHYSICS DIVISION.

4. [Materials and Life Science Division]

 MATERIALS AND LIFE SCIENCE EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY (MLF) USER OPERATION 
RESUMED. 
 NINETY-SEVEN NEUTRON PROPOSALS WERE APPROVED FOR THE 2016A PERIOD. 
 NEUTRON USER PROGRAM RESUMED. 
 FIRST WORKSHOP FOR J-PARC/ANSTO MOU COLLABORATION AND THE 7TH MLF 
SYMPOSIUM.
 GENERATION OF ULTRA SLOW MUON IS CONFIRMED.

5. [Nuclear Transmutation Division]

 CHALLENGES TO CONFINE HIGH TEMPERATURE LIQUID METAL.
 
6. [Safety Division]

 THIRD SYMPOSIUM ON SAFETY IN ACCELERATOR FACILITIES.
 A MEETING FOR EXCHANGING INFORMATION ON SAFETY EFFORTS IN J-PARC 
CENTER.

7. [Information System Section]

 THE SCIENCE INFORMATION NETWORK (SINET) UPGRADE TO 5 MAKES J-PARC 
NETWORK SPEED UP.

8. [Editorial Note]


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1. [Overview] by Naohito SAITO
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 New fiscal year of J-PARC

     We have entered the second year of the new management group 
including myself. As we reported in the previous newsletter, we had 
many struggles last year. While we were able to restart the hadron 
facility last year, we had to stop the operation of the Materials and 
Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) for nearly three months due 
to target problems. Towards the end of the last run, we had to stop 
the Main Ring (MR) operation unexpectedly earlier due to coil damage 
in one of the dipole magnets, then we had a collimator/duct 
replacement in the 3-GeV Rapid Cycling Synchrotron (RCS), which 
delayed the start of the current run. We are reminding ourselves that 
single failure could lead to a stop of whole facility, and will 
improve our risk management for all over the J-PARC facilities.

     On the other hand, we were able to make a strong tie with both 
oversea and domestic institutes: newly established research 
cooperation with the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology 
Organization (ANSTO) as was reported in the J-PARC News (issue #123) 
and the branch established by Osaka University at J-PARC. Besides 
Ibaraki University has created a new graduate course for quantum beam 
science, which include lectures and lab-course related to the MLF in 
J-PARC.
We think these deeper connections with experienced facilities 
and universities will bring the J-PARC to its new stage as an 
international user research facility.

     We have just received the report from International Advisory 
Committee (IAC) in the final form. (URL link to be provided) While 
the IAC recognized our efforts on safety and scientific production, 
it also urges us to further strengthen the scientific drive across the 
J-PARC facilities. We have established the science coordination team 
at MLF which is uniformly organized including JAEA, KEK, CROSS and 
Ibaraki. We will continue to work together more closely with users for 
more science production.


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2. [Accelerator Division] by Kazuo HASEGAWA
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 ACCELERATOR STUDY FOR HIGHER USER OPERATION PARAMETERS AND BEAM 
DELIVERY TO USERS

     After the New Year's holiday, the beam operation started on 
January 7 as a new operation run of Run#66. First, the linac current 
was set at 50 mA, and accelerator study at high beam current was 
carried out for the linac and the 3 GeV Rapid Cycling Synchrotron 
(RCS). Then the current was changed to 40 mA and fine tuning study 
aiming at user operation parameter setting was done in the linac, the 
RCS and the main ring (MR). 
     As a result of the study, the beam power to the neutrino facility 
was increased to 330 - 390 kW (it was 300 - 330 kW at 30 mA by the 
end of 2015) from February 1. However, the MR beam operation was 
suspended by a vacuum leak at the MR abort line on February 25. Some 
measures were taken and the beam operation resumed on March 3. In 
addition, another failure occurred at the coil of the main 
electromagnet on March 29 and recovery work was taken.
     After the target failure in November at the Materials and Life 
Science Experimental Facility (MLF), the beam tuning and user program 
were restarted on February 14 and 20, respectively. It was operated 
with conservative beam power at 206 kW to protect the target. To
improve the quality of the experiments even at the lower beam power, 
temporarily the accelerator provides one bunch beam instead of two 
bunches, which makes shorter pulse and some MLF users want. The 
accelerator delivered beam successfully to the MLF as scheduled in 
March.

 ACCELERATOR TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE (A-TAC) MEETING

     The 15th A-TAC meeting was held at the J-PARC Research Building 
on February 25 to 27. Ten committee members attended and about 20 
reports were presented such as operational status, commissioning 
results and performance upgrade. The committee deliberated the 
improvements, directivity, etc., and gave recommendations.

 
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3. [Particle and Nuclear Physics Division] by K. OZAWA,  T. TSUKAMOTO, 
S. MIHARA AND T. KOMATSUBARA
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 DISCUSSION ON EXTENSION OF THE HADRON EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY 
(by K. Ozawa) 

     An international workshop on physics in the extended Hadron 
Experimental Facility was held at Tokai  building # 1 of KEK on March 
5 and 6. In the workshop, it was discussed on an extension of an 
experimental hall  in the existing Hadron Experimental Facility. The 
workshop aimed to develop further possibilities in physics and 
improve design of proposed beam lines at the extended Hadron 
Experimental Facility.
     The workshop had 62 participants including 13 from foreign 
countries and 20 contributed talks both in particle physics and 
nuclear physics research fields. Also, several interesting topics were 
discussed. One of major topics was to search a new physics beyond the 
standard model using measurements of Kaon rare decays. Another 
interesting topic was to investigate an internal structure of hadrons 
using charm quark related hadrons. Also, strangeness physics was 
expanded using high precision and high statistics measurements. Based 
on discussions at the workshop, a letter of intent for the extension 
of the Hadron Facility will be drafted promptly.
     A combination project for the extension of the hadron facility, 
g-2 experiment, and COMET Phase-II experiment was selected as one of
 important large scale projects of Master Plan 2014, which is called 
by the Science Council of Japan. The project was also listed in a road 
map of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and 
Technology (MEXT) for large scale projects.
     For details of the workshop, please refer to the following URL:
https://kds.kek.jp/indico/event/20472/

 PROF. EMERITUS KOICHIRO NISHIKAWA AND PROF. KENZO NAKAMURA GOT YOJI 
TOTSUKA PRIZE (by T. Tsukamoto) 

     Prof. Emeritus Koichiro Nishikawa of the High Energy Accelerator 
Research Organization (KEK) and Prof. Kenzo Nakamura of KAVLI 
Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU) were 
awarded the 7th Yoji Totsuka prize for the verification of accelerator 
neutrino oscillation from the atmospheric neutrino oscillation in 
Super-Kamiokande, and their leadership in the K2K project. It is 
needless to say, the achievement of K2K led to current T2K project.
http://www.hfbs.or.jp/orito-totsuka-prize-index.html (only in 
Japanese)

     T2K restarted on data taking after 8-month maintenance of 
neutrino beam facility and it is running at 390-kW.
     Test experiments T59, T60 and T64 have been carried out at the 
Neutrino Monitor Building (NM) and/or the Neutrino Assembly Building 
(NA). T59 is preparing the detector to measure neutrino interaction 
with water, which consists of plastic scintillators and water. T60 is 
measuring neutrino interaction with emulsion counters. T64 started to 
measure neutron background at NM in February.

 STATUS OF THE COMET CRYOGENIC SYSTEM AND E34 MUON BEAM 
(by S. Mihara) 

     Preparation of the COMET cryogenic system in a super-conducting 
magnet system is in progress.
     The liquid-helium refrigerator previously used in the E36 
experiment has been moved to the COMET experiment area. A current-lead 
box was installed to supply electric current from the power supply at 
room temperature to the magnet at liquid-helium temperature and was 
tested successfully.
     The E34 collaboration prepares for precision measurements of 
muon anomalous magnetic moment and electric dipole moment. The 
collaboration completed tests with muon beam in muon source 
development and a muon beam profile monitor at muon facility in the 
Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF).
These tests were crucial to realize the muon acceleration. Advanced 
design for the muon LINAC in the low energy range was completed.

 PROGRAMS OF ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETINGS (by T. KOMATSUBARA) 

     The 20th and 21st PAC meetings were held, at Tokai, on July 15 - 
17, 2015 and January 13 - 15, 2016, respectively. Status of 
experiments were reported and machine time allocation was discussed 
in the meetings.
https://kds.kek.jp/indico/event/19054/
https://kds.kek.jp/indico/event/20540/

   PAC reports are available through the following web page.
http://j-parc.jp/researcher/Hadron/en/PAC_for_NuclPart_e.html 

 REPORTS FROM THE PARTICLE & NUCLEAR PHYSICS DIVISION 
(by T. KOMATSUBARA) 

     At the J-PARC IAC2016 meeting held on February 29 and March 1, 
2016, overview of the physics programs, hadron beam resumption, and 
highlights from Nuclear physics, Neutrino physics, Kaon physics and 
Muon physics were reported.


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4. [Materials and Life Science Division] by Toshiji KANAYA
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 MATERIALS AND LIFE SCIENCE EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY (MLF) USER OPERATION 
RESUMED

     1) Neutron Source
     In January 2016, it is replaced the neutron production target 
vessel that had a failure in last November with an alternative which 
has mechanically robust structure. However, the replacement does not 
equip the helium bubbling system which is necessary for stable 
operation with a power higher than 300-kW. Therefore, we restarted the 
MLF user operation with a beam power 200-kW from February 20.
     We are making efforts to improve the robustness of the target 
vessel by eliminating welds, and/or bolts as much as possible. In 
February 22, a design review was held to assess the adequacy of 
improvements in the design of the target vessel.
     During the maintenance period for the target vessel replacement, 
we had also made efforts to recover the performance of the helium 
refrigerator of the cryogenic hydrogen circulation system by 
regenerating active charcoal of an oil separator, a heat exchanger, 
and so on. Unfortunately, the performance could not recover yet, by 
another possible cause such as oil contamination. We took a measure 
to reduce helium flow to suppress a source of the contamination at the 
compressor of the refrigerator and stop the operation for purification 
for 6 days after 3-week operating period. We'll take every measure to 
solve this problem in the summer shut-down period. 

 NINETY-SEVEN NEUTRON PROPOSALS WERE APPROVED FOR THE 2016A PERIOD 
 
 NEUTRON USER PROGRAM RESUMED

 FIRST WORKSHOP FOR J-PARC/ANSTO MOU COLLABORATION AND THE 7TH MLF 
SYMPOSIUM

     2) Neutron Instruments and Science
     The general proposals for the 2016A period were reviewed by the 
Neutron Science Proposal Review Committee. The total number of 
submitted neutron proposals was 290. Finally 97 neutron proposals were 
approved by the MLF Advisory Board. The total competition rate (number 
of submitted / approved proposals) is as high as 3.0.
     From February 20, we resumed the user program, which had been 
suspended due to the target problem from November 20. The all 
suspended proposals approved for 2014B and 2015A periods will be 
carried out with 2016A.
     On March 2 and 3, the 1st workshop for J-PARC/ANSTO MOU 
collaboration was held at the J-PARC Research Building with the 
attendance of the Minister-Counsellor at the Embassy of Australia, Mr. 
Anthony Murfett and twelve participants from Australian Nuclear 
Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO) including the CEO, Dr. Adi 
Paterson. To promote the collaboration in fields of neutron scattering 
science and technology based on the MOU which has been newly 
contracted in July 2015, six topics of deuteration technique, neutron 
polarization, science & instrumentation, sample environment, 
industrial engagement, and safety were intensively discussed to 
deepen mutual understanding of current status of both facilities and 
to develop near-future collaborations under the leadership of the 
coordinators in each field. 
     Quantum Beam Science Festa 2015 involving the 7th MLF Symposium 
and the 33rd PF Symposium was held on March 15 and 16 at Epochal 
Tsukuba. On 15th, two plenary talks by Professor Yoshio Takahashi of 
the University of Tokyo on geo- and environmental-chemistry and 
Professor Kiyohiko Igarashi of the University of Tokyo on structural 
analysis of protein, 18 oral talks and 317 posters were presented as a 
common program of MLF and PF symposium. In MLF Symposium on 16th, a 
memorial session was held in memory of the late Prof. Kusuo Nishiyama 
and the late Prof. Noboru Watanabe. After the special talk on sparse 
modelling for data analysis by Prof. Masato Okada of the University 
of Tokyo, seven oral presentations were made. 

 GENERATION OF ULTRA SLOW MUON IS CONFIRMED

     3) Muon Science Facility (MUSE)
     When the "Ultra Slow Muon Microscope" project was launched in 
2011 as a whole-community enterprise, no one imagined that it have 
many twists and turns in reaching the first goal of ultra slow muon 
(USM) beam production. Apart from conceivable difficulties in 
planning, the project was forced a slow start under a protracted 
influence of the gigantic East-Japan earthquake, and it experienced a 
series of unscheduled long-term interruptions due to the incidents in 
the Hadron hall and the MLF. The e-mail from the experimenters at U1A 
cabin on February 21 reported on a time-of-flight peak that signaled 
generation of USM. It is all the more delightful among people who were 
concerned with the project and awaited the news impatiently. 
However, it has also remind us the next things that needs to do before 
delivering the real first beam to the U1A experimental area. The 
efforts for optimizing the USM beam will be continued for a while, in 
parallel with user programs at D-line and surface muon beam 
development at S-line.


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5. [Nuclear Transmutation Division] by Toshinobu SASA
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 CHALLENGES TO CONFINE HIGH TEMPERATURE LIQUID METAL

     Liquid lead-bismuth eutectic alloy (LBE) is adopted to the 
Accelerator-driven system (ADS) for transmutation of long-lived 
radioactive waste as a spallation target and coolant for subcritical 
core. LBE gives satisfactory characteristics to spallation neutron 
production, waste transmutation reaction, wide range of liquid phase 
temperature, and chemically inert water/air. In contrast to these 
feasible properties, LBE shows highly corrosive attribute with 
stainless steel, typical nuclear reactor material. LBE has 
characteristics to bind with Nickel, which is one of the major 
compounds of stainless steel, and extract Nickel selectively from 
steel surface.
     To solve the corrosion issues of LBE, forming the film layer on 
inner piping surface is considered as the promising method. If we 
control the oxygen potential in LBE, we can form the oxide film layer 
in the piping. However, if oxygen is taken too much into LBE, excess 
oxide compounds may cause a blockage of a loop. On the other hand, if 
the oxygen potential is too low, enough thickness of oxide layer is 
not formed, and it raises corrosion of LBE. It means we need the 
precise oxygen potential control system for LBE loop with preparing 
accurate oxygen potential measurement device.
     By the cooperation with European MYRRHA team including Karlsruhe 
Institute of Technology, we were successfully developed the oxygen 
potential sensor, which can be applicable for radioactive LBE 
environment. To control the oxygen potential in flowing LBE in two 
large-scale experimental loops, IMMORTAL (Integrated Multi-purpose 
MOckup for TEF-T Real-scale TArget Loop) and OLLOCHI (Oxygen-
controlled LBE LOop for Corrosion experiment in HIgh-temperature), 
preparation for the systems are also in progress. The functional tests 
for the systems have been started and it will be operated in the 
fiscal year 2016.


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6. [Safety Division] by Yukihiro MIYAMOTO and Kotaro BESSHO
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 THIRD SYMPOSIUM ON SAFETY IN ACCELERATOR FACILITIES

     To foster safety culture and learn lessons from radioactive 
material leak incident in the Hadron Experimental Facility in 2013, 
the J-PARC Center holds a safety symposium every year to exchange 
information and discuss efforts for ensuring facility safety and 
related matters. The 3rd Symposium on Safety in Accelerator 
Facilities was held on January 27-28 at Tokai, and about 150 
participants from various facilities, universities and companies, 
shared information on various safety issues. Two kinds of topics, 
"Management of radioactivity induced in accelerator facilities" and 
"Safety measures for low-temperature equipment and high-pressure gas 
equipment at accelerator facilities" were featured in the present 
symposium in addition to the existing topics such as "Lessons learned 
from incidents" and "Radiation safety at accelerator facilities". 
Various safety efforts were reported and discussed through 13 oral 
presentations and 15 poster presentations. The participants deepened 
mutual understanding on safety issues and appropriate measures at 
accelerator facilities.

 A MEETING FOR EXCHANGING INFORMATION ON SAFETY EFFORTS IN J-PARC 
CENTER
     
     In order to exchange and share information on safety efforts 
proceeding in each facility, a J-PARC Center meeting was held on March 
30. A variety of activities for safety was reported from accelerator 
facilities and three experimental facilities (the Hadron Experimental 
Facility, the Neutrino Experimental Facility, and the Materials and 
Life Science Experimental Facility). These unique approaches shared in 
the meeting would be effective in reconsidering safety activities at 
each facility, division, section, and group in J-PARC.


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7. [Information System Section] by Atsushi MANABE
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 THE SCIENCE INFORMATION NETWORK (SINET) UPGRADE TO 5 MAKES J-PARC 
NETWORK SPEED UP
 
     On April 1, the National Institute of Informatics (NII) has 
upgraded SINET from version 4 to 5 which is a gateway from J-PARC 
network to the internet and also an important connection between 
J-PARC Tokai and KEK Tsukuba campus. Thanks to NII support in the 
upgrade, the network bandwidth between Tsukuba and Tokai could be 
increased from 1 Gbps x 8 to 10 Gbps (internet connection: 10 Gbps).
     Besides the current bandwidth, the upgrade offers a future option 
of 20 Gbps for both of the connections if J-PARC network can be 
adapted.
http://www.sinet.ad.jp


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8. [Editorial Note]
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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++