[news-l-35] J-PARC Newsletter#18

From: Shin'ya SAWADA (shinya.sawada@kek.jp)
Date: Sat Nov 03 2029 - 16:27:28 JST


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                    J-PARC Project Newsletter

               _______ No. 18 Nov, 2004 _______

          High Intensity Proton Accelerator Project proposed jointly
          by the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI)
          and the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK)
          http://j-parc.jp/

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 HEADLINES AND CONTENTS
  
1. <<Overview>>
    
    .BUDGET NEGOTIATION WITH THE GOVERNMENT FOR JFY2005.
    .DISCUSSIONS ON THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE ARE ACTIVELY
     IN PROGRESS.

2. <<Accelerator Group>>

    .THE BENDING MAGNET FOR THE RAPID-CYCLING SYNCHROTRON WAS
     QUIETLY EXCITED WITH THE DESIGNED REPETITION RATE.

3. <<Exotic Nuclear Science Group>>

    .FIRST TRIAC WORKSHOP.

4. <<Nuclear and Particle Physics Group>>

    .NP04 WORKSHOP HELD IN TOKAI.

5. <<Neutron Science Group>>

    .PROGRESS CONTINUES ON THE MLF BUILDING CONSTRUCTION.
     THE BOTTOM FRAME IS EMBEDDED IN THE REGION WHERE THE BASE
     PLATE WILL BE PLACED.

6. <<Muon Science Group>>

    .INTERNATIONAL BIDDING OF MINERAL INSULATION CABLE, PILLOW SEAL
     FLANGES AND A SET OF THE MONITOR CHAMBER WERE RENDERED.

7. <<Nuclear Transmutation Facility Group>>

    .FIRST TRIAL OF NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTATION FOR PULSE MODE OPERATION
     OF SUBCRITICAL CORE WAS MADE AT FAST CRITICAL ASSEMBLY (FCA) IN
     JAERI USING NEWLY EQUIPPED D-T NEUTRON SOURCE.

8. <<Radiation Safety Group>>

    .EXPERT COMMITTEE ON THE MLF NEUTRON TARGET WAS HELD AND
     APPLICATION FOR THE NEUTRINO FACILITY WAS SUBMITTED TO THE
     TOKAI-MURA GOVERNMENT.

9. <<Integrated Control Group>>

    .EPICS DEVELOPMENTS DONE DURING THE 60MEV DTL COMMISSIONING.

10. <<Facility Construction Group>>

    .ACCELERATOR TUNNEL OF THE 3GEV SYNCHROTRON BUILDING HAS BEEN
     COMPLETED.
    .ORDER OF THE 4TH PART OF THE 50GEV SYNCHROTRON TUNNEL WILL BE
     DONE SOON.

11. <<Announcement of Symposia and Meetings>>

12. <<Editorial Note>>
  
    .Subscribe or Unsubscribe

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1. <<Overview>> By Shoji NAGAMIYA
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       .BUDGET NEGOTIATION WITH THE GOVERNMENT FOR JFY2005.

          Every year, the summer is the season of budget negotiation
with the Government for the next fiscal year. Last year, the project
team agreed to stretch the construction term by one year. Therefore,
this year's highlight in the negotiation was to keep the present
timeline, namely, the J-PARC Phase 1 completion by the end of JFY2007.

          The negotiation was not easy, since a sharp budget rise is
required in JFY2005 to keep the present construction schedule. At the
end of the budget negotiation, our funding agency (the Ministry of
Education, etc. and Technology (MEXT)) finally agreed to submit the
minimum budget that shall not induce any delays in the construction
schedule. However, from this year the budget approval system has been
slightly changed in Japan. We are not able to learn the final budget
figure until the end of December of this year.

          Meanwhile, many reviews on the next year's funding level
have been started. Concerning the J-PARC, there were three reviews
since July. The highlight was the evaluation by the Council of
Science and Technology Policy (CSTP), which was held on September
24. We have not yet received the result of the evaluation by this
CSTP.

          One encouraging piece of news is that KEK sent a budget
proposal to arrange an improvement and shipment of the existing
equipment at the Tsukuba site of KEK for the usage of J-PARC at Tokai.
A significant amount of the budget was proposed. During the summer,
this proposal was reviewed favorably at our funding agency, MEXT.

          We will report the final result of the J-PARC related
JFY2005 budget after December, 2004.

       .DISCUSSIONS ON THE ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE ARE ACTIVELY
        IN PROGRESS.

          In the previous Newsletter, I reported that active
discussions on the organizational structure of J-PARC are in progress
at both KEK and JAERI. Now, the first draft of the KEK-JAERI joint
proposal was discussed and agreed at the September J-PARC Management
Steering Committee meeting. Now, this joint proposal is discussed at
many community-related meetings.

          The basic idea behind the current proposal is as follows.
KEK and JAERI would create jointly the "J-PARC Center" in order to
operate the entire J-PARC facilities. J-PARC Center is responsible
not only for the operation of the facility, but also on the safety,
the user communications, etc. Two institutions will create necessary
MoU's and/or Agreements to warrant the tasks to be performed at the
J-PARC Center, whereas both budget decision and staff appointment at
J-PARC shall be arranged at the two institutions.

          This plan is presently discussed widely at several user
communities, including the Science Council of Japan, Physical Society
of Japan meetings, the User Consultative Committee of J-PARC, many
KEK's committees, etc. Also, co-chairs of the J-PARC Management
Steering Committee (A. Koma from KEK and S. Tanaka from JAERI) were
assigned as representatives for the negotiation with the Government on
the issue of the organizational structure of J-PARC. Note that
Dr. Koma is the Director of Institute of Materials Structure Research
at KEK and Dr. Tanaka is Vice President of JAERI.

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2. <<Accelerator Group>> by Yoshisige YAMAZAKI
----------------------------------------------------------------------

       .THE BENDING MAGNET FOR THE RAPID-CYCLING SYNCHROTRON WAS
        QUIETLY EXCITED WITH THE DESIGNED REPETITION RATE.

          The magnets for the rapid-cycling synchrotron (RCS) are
very difficult to produce. First, the rapidly varying magnetic fields
induce eddy currents in metallic materials. The eddy current not only
heats up the metal, but also deforms the magnetic field exerted on the
beam. Second, the sinusoidally varying magnetic field gives rise to
mechanical vibrations of the magnet, possibly inducing an orbit error
in the beam circulation. Even destruction of the magnet due to
fatigue is a concern. In order to reduce the eddy currents, the RCS
magnet group took many steps. The magnet coils are made of stranded
aluminum wires insulated from each other via surface oxidization.
The magnetic cores are of course made of laminated steel sheets. In
addition, the core ends are shaped like Logowsky cut in order to
reduce the concentrated magnetic fields there. Furthermore, the core
ends are equipped with many slits. On the other hand, the vibration
problem has something to do with the symmetry and the mechanical
rigidity. The effort to improve the mechanical accuracy and stability
and to reduce the eddy current proved very effective. The temperature
increases of the core ends are as expected, while the magnet is very
quietly excited. The continuous test run of six hours was finished
successfully. The 48 hours run will start soon.

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3. <<Exotic Nuclear Science Group>> by Sunchan JEONG
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       .FIRST TRIAC WORKSHOP.

          The 1st TRIAC workshop, jointly organized by KEK-IPNS and
JAERI-Tokai, was held successfully at JAERI-Tokai from 21 to 23 Sept.
with 81 domestic participants. The objective of the workshop was to
discuss specific experimental proposals using the radioactive nuclear
beams (RNB) and the high intensity stable nuclear beams (SNB)
available both immediately and in near future at the TRIAC. According
to the time schedule of the TRIAC, the program was first devoted to
experiments using low energy RNB (<1MeV/u) to be available at the end
of this year. The proposals were concentrated on experiments related
to nuclear astrophysics, materials science, and nuclear structure
studies. Especially, the development of polarized nuclear beams were
essential for such studies, which is under progress at the TRIAC.
Following these were proposals for experiments using high energy
nuclear beams (5-8MeV/u), including radioactive and stable. In
particular, the unique experiments using neutron rich fission
products as RNB were discussed intensively. Considering the trend of
the world-wide RNB facilities, the second stage of the TRIAC
(upgrading the beam energy up to 5 -8MeV/u) should be completed as
soon as possible in order to compete with other facilities. In
summary, there were 34 experimental proposals; 5 for development of
experimental devices, 4 for nuclear astrophysics, 15 for nuclear
structure, 3 for nuclear reaction mechanisms, 5 for materials
sciences, and 2 for nuclear chemistry. The abstracts presented during
the workshop can be found in http://triac.kek.jp.

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4. <<Nuclear and Particle Physics Group>> by Jun IMAZATO
----------------------------------------------------------------------

       .NP04 WORKSHOP HELD IN TOKAI.

          The 3rd International Workshop on Nuclear and Particle
Physics at J-PARC (NP04) was held with its main sessions in Tokai
village on 4-6 August and a separate neutrino session in Tsukuba on
24-26 August. This workshop was the third meeting of the series
following NP02 held 2 years ago in Kyoto, and was devoted to physics
program discussions at the 50-GeV synchrotron. The main sessions were
attended by 110 participants including scientists from abroad and
focussed on the fields of 1) strangeness nuclear physics, 2) hadron
physics, 3) kaon physics, and 4) muon physics. Experimental ideas -
now presented as letters of intent - were developed further, aiming
for full proposals that are due to be submitted to J-PARC in the near
future. The neutrino session, which was arranged in combination with
a T2K meeting, attracted about 80 ( 40 from abroad) physicists. The
main topic was the preparation for an oscillation experiment, but also
new proposals were presented for a neutrino scattering experiment to
study nucleon structure. During the Tokai sesson a tour to the J-PARC
Construction site was arranged and more than 80 participants took part.
The progress of the large-scale civil engineering and the accelerator
building construction near the Pacific Ocean gave an enormous but very
realistic impression of J-PARC.

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5. <<Neutron Science Group>> by Yujiro IKEDA
   (Materials & Life Science Experimental Facility Group)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

       .PROGRESS CONTINUES ON THE MLF BUILDING CONSTRUCTION. THE
        BOTTOM FRAME IS EMBEDDED IN THE REGION WHERE THE BASE PLATE
        WILL BE PLACED.

          The MLF building construction is progressing almost on
schedule. After the basement, construction is now on the first floor,
which is the real base of the building structure. At the position
where the neutron source is to be centered, the base frame is embedded.
The base plate and bottom liner are to be placed soon. All process
component routing and drawing up the composition on the working
drawings have been finished. Tasks of developing the procedures for
commissioning the system and the facility maintenance program are
underway. A detailed design review concerning the Hot cell access has
been undertaken within the team to confirm the ability to do
maintenance by remote handling.

          A call for Letters of Intent is announced from the project
team to promote proposals to use the instrument. As a new approach,
two different types of area are encouraged for proposals along with
those for the full instrument. One is the beam line for testing an
instrument or devices under development, and the other is just for
futuristic ideas.
  

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6. <<Muon Science Group>> by Yasuhiro MIYAKE
----------------------------------------------------------------------

       .INTERNATIONAL BIDDING OF MINERAL INSULATION CABLE, PILLOW
        SEAL FLANGES AND A SET OF THE MONITOR CHAMBER WERE RENDERED.

          In this term, we have been working for the international
bidding of mineral insulation cable as long as 2700 m, 28 sets of
pillow seal flanges, and a specialized monitor chamber. The mineral
insulation cable with a cross section of 19.8 mm x 19.8 mm will be
used for fabrication of the coils that will be assembled into three
 sets of the primary-line quadrupole magnets with an aperture of 260 mm
in diameter and 1000 mm in length. Twenty sets of the pillow seal
flanges with pillows on both sides and 8 sets of the pillow seals on
one side are intended for the vacuum connections that will be used for
the beam ducts of the primary proton beam line and the front-end
secondary extraction beam lines in the vicinity of the muon target.
The monitor chamber is a specialized and complicated vacuum chamber,
into which a beam profile monitor will be mounted on a steel shield
plug and driven vertically to allow it to be positioned in the beam.
Precisely located pillow seal flanges are provided at all entry and
exit ports of the chamber.

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7. <<Nuclear Transmutation Facility Group>> by Hiroyuki OIGAWA
----------------------------------------------------------------------

       .FIRST TRIAL OF NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTATION FOR PULSE MODE
        OPERATION OF SUBCRITICAL CORE WAS MADE AT FAST CRITICAL
        ASSEMBLY (FCA) IN JAERI USING NEWLY EQUIPPED D-T NEUTRON
        SOURCE.

          The pulse-mode nuclear instrumentation for the Transmutation
Physics Experimental Facility (TEF-P) is one of the key technologies
to assure safe operation of the facility in the subcritical state. To
demonstrate the good performance of the designed nuclear
instrumentation, a simulation test was made at the Fast Critical
Assembly (FCA) in JAERI using the newly equipped D-T neutron source.
As a result, the integral power level of each pulse (100Hz) was
successfully monitored at the subcritical state (k-eff=0.996),
although the fluctuations were large. The feasibility of the
pulse-mode instrumentation for a wide range of subcritical levels will
be evaluated on the basis of further experiments where a
high-efficiency neutron detector and an improved electronic circuit
will be prepared.

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8. <<Radiation Safety Group>>
                        by Tokushi SHIBATA and Hiroshi NAKAMURA
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       .EXPERT COMMITTEE ON THE MLF NEUTRON TARGET WAS HELD AND
        APPLICATION FOR THE NEUTRINO FACILITY WAS SUBMITTED TO THE
        TOKAI-MURA GOVERNMENT.

          The 3rd expert committee on the MLF neutron target was held
on July 22, 2004. In the committee the following four items were
reviewed:
(1) radiation safety system of the MLF facility, (2) safety design of
a spallation target system composed of highly radioactive mercury,
(3) disposal system of radioactive gas, and (4) safety plan for a
liquid-hydrogen circulation system. The spallation target employed at
MLF is the first attempt to use mercury as a liquid-metal target at a
high-energy and high-intensity proton accelerator facility. There is
a difficulty in the handling of mercury: even a small leakage results
in air contamination. This committee is evaluating the safety system
and the handling procedure from the viewpoint of radiation hazards.
Another several meetings will be held to finalize the safety report.
An application for construction of the neutrino facility was submitted
to the Tokai-mura government on August 28, 2004 and presented to the
investigating committee of nuclear problems formed in the Tokai-mura
Assembly. The main interest was about the facility itself. Several
radiation-safety items were discussed such as expected dose in a year
and amount of radioactive waste. The application is scheduled to be
submitted to the Nuclear Energy Safety Division, Department of Civil
Affairs and the Environment, Ibaraki Prefecture Government in
December, 2004.

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9. <<Integrated Control Group>> by Tadahiko KATOH
----------------------------------------------------------------------
       
       .EPICS DEVELOPMENTS DONE DURING THE 60MEV DTL COMMISSIONING.

          The commissioning of the 60 MeV Drift-Tube Linac has just
finished. Much effort has been made in order to control equipment
remotely through EPICS environment and TCP/IP network. Many kinds of
developments have been done on the control systems during the
commissioning period. A unified general-purpose device driver
"NetDev" has been developed for several types of Programmable Logic
Controllers manufactured by different companies connected to the
control network. And the device support routines and application
programs for the measuring instrument modules equipped in WE-7000
measuring system have also has been developed. The data taken
through WE-7000 measuring system and PLCs were recorded by an EPICS
standard tool called "channel archiver" and retrieved by using web
interface technique. Data taken by the control system were displayed
on the screens through MEDM and EDM utilities that are also standard
in EPICS environment. Some application programs are written in
"python" language utilizing library software developed by KEK
B-factory raccelerator controls group that is closely supporting us.

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10. <<Facility Construction Group>>
                              by Hideo NARUSE and Tsuruhiro MATSUNAGA
----------------------------------------------------------------------

       .ACCELERATOR TUNNEL OF THE 3GEV SYNCHROTRON BUILDING HAS BEEN
        COMPLETED.

          As for the Linac Building, painting and construction of pits
for cooling water pipelaying are going on at the part above ground.
Setting of baseplates, on which the linac will be located, at the
accelerator tunnel has been almost finished. As for the 3GeV
Synchrotron Building, construction of the building frame has been
finished and painting is going on now. At the circumferential part of
the building, construction of multipurpose underground conduit and
filling are going on. The new high-voltage of 153 kV electricity
receiving/transforming substation will receive electricity on the
beginning of the next year. The construction of the Material and Life
Science Facility Building also progresses steadily; outer-liner of the
helium vessel for the neutron source was installed on 17th, October.

       .ORDER OF THE 4TH PART OF THE 50GEV SYNCHROTRON TUNNEL WILL BE
        DONE SOON.

          As for the 1st part of the 50GeV Synchrotron tunnel,
construction of the building flame has been finished and installation
of equipments is going on. As for the 2nd and 3rd part of the tunnel,
excavation, paling and concrete work are going on. The constructions
of the electric power supply building and the machine building
progress steadily. Order of the 4th part of the accelerator tunnel
will be done soon. The exploration of the archeological excavation
around the 50GeV Synchrotron Building has been finished in the end of
August.

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11. Announcement of Symposia and Meetings
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1) 'Workshop on New Age of Neutron-Spectrometers and Data Analysis at
    New Spallation Sources'
        2-3 December 2004 at JAERI, Tokai
        Contact: Kenji Nakajima <nakajima@neutrons.tokai.jaeri.go.jp>

2) Annual meeting of Japanese Society of Neutron Science
        16-17 December 2004 at Hokkaido University, Sapporo
        Contact: Osamu Yamamuro <yamamuro@issp.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
   

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12. Editorial Note
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        In case you do not wish to receive this Newsletter in the
future, please send an email to
                
                 majordomo@jkj.tokai.jaeri.go.jp

and simply write one sentence in the body of the message as

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If you wish to receive, write one sentence in the body of the message
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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/

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        Editorial Board:
             Masatoshi ARAI (chair): masatoshi.arai@kek.jp
             Koji YOSHIMURA koji.yoshimura@kek.jp
             Yujiro IKEDA: ikeda@cens.tokai.jaeri.go.jp
             Nobuo OUCHI ouchi@linac.tokai.jaeri.go.jp
             Shinya SAWADA: shinya.sawada@kek.jp
        English Editor:
             Dick Mischke mischke@triumf.ca

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