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J-PARC Project Newsletter
_______ No.27, February 2007_______
Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex under construction jointly
by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and
the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK)
http://j-parc.jp/index-e.html
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HEADLINES AND CONTENTS
1. <<Overview>>
LINAC STARTED ACCELERATION OF BEAMS.
BUDGET NEGOTIATION AND BUDGET REVIEWS.
MANY INTERNATIONAL REVIEWS
THE THIRD REVIEW ON J-PARC STARTED.
EXPANSION OF THE J-PARC CENTER.
2. <<Accelerator Group>>
THE LINAC BEAM COMMISSIONING STARTED AS SCHEDULED,
ACCELERATING THE BEAMS UP TO 50 MEV BY THE END OF 2006.
3. <<Control Group>>
BEAM INTERLOCK AND CONTROL SYSTEM HAVE BEEN
ESTABLISHED FOR THE LINAC BEAM COMMISSIONING
4. <<Nuclear and Particle Physics Group>>
NEUTRINO BEAMLINE TUNNEL COMPLETED
NEUTRINO HORN LONG TERM TEST IS GOING ON
2nd PAC MEETING WAS HELD
5. <<Neutron Science Group>>
MLF BUILDING CONSTRUCTION HAS COMPLETED.
FULL-SCALE TENDERING FOR THE NEUTRON INSTRUMENT
CONSTRUCTION HAS STARTED.
6. <<Muon Science Group>>
INSTALLATION OF THE BASEPLATE AND ALIGNMENT PLATES
AT THE LOCATION OF THE TEMPORAL GATE
7. <<Nuclear Transmutation Group>>
PROGRESS OF R&D ON SPALLATION TARGET AND CONCEPTUAL
DESIGN OF TRANSMUTATION PHYSICS EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY
8. <<Radiation Safety Group>>
APPLICATION FOR 3 GeV SYNCHROTRON OPERATION LICENCE
IS READY TO SUBMIT TO MEXT
9. <<Announcement of Symposia and Meetings>>
10. <<Editorial Note>>
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1. <<Overview>> By Shoji NAGAMIYA
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LINAC STARTED ACCELERATION OF BEAMS.
After the Linac area was closed for radiation safety in early October,
trials to accelerate beams in the Linac have been started. In the
morning of November 20th the switch to allow the acceleration of
beams was turned on. In the evening of the same day, the first beam
was observed at the exit of the RFQ. Subsequently, the acceleration
of beams up to 50 MeV was successfully achieved on December 20th.
Presently, the acceleration up to the full Linac energy of 181 MeV is
being tried. Yoshi Yamazaki describes details of the accelerator test
at the Linac in the next section. For the J-PARC project, all these
events set the first important milestone of the project.
BUDGET NEGOTIATION AND BUDGET REVIEWS.
At the end of December of 2006, the budget for the fiscal year of
2007 was announced. The J-PARC will have 244 Oku Yen for the
construction budget and 65 Oku Yen for the operational budget in
JFY2007. These numbers warrant an expected start of the operation
of the 3 GeV synchrotron in the middle of JFY2007 (the fall of 2007).
A part of the reason for a reasonable budget was due to a good
evaluation by the Council of Science and Technology Policy (CSTP).
It was announced that our project was ranked to “A” for JFY2007.
MANY INTERNATIONAL REVIEWS
>From the late fall to the beginning of March, we had (and will have)
many international advisory and review committees. At the end of
November of 2006 the N-TAC meeting to review technical progress of
the neutron source was held. At the beginning of January this year,
two meetings were held: Muon Advisory Committee and 50 GeV
Program Advisory Committee. At the beginning of March we will have
two meetings: Accelerator Technical Advisory Committee (A-TAC
and the J-PARC International Advisory Committee (IAC). All meetings
are very important to us.
THE THIRD REVIEW ON J-PARC STARTED.
The MEXT organized the third review on J-PARC with the chair of the
review committee by Professor Inoue, who is the President of Tohoku
University. Note that the first review meeting of this type was held
before the approval of the project in 1999-2000.
The second one was held in 2003, at which the neutrino program was
officially approved for Phase 1. The third one started in early December
of 2006 and the second meeting is held in January. Almost once a
month the meetings are scheduled until May of this year.
The major review items are: 1) the operational budget, 2) Linac energy
recovery, 3) Phase 2 projects, 4) organization for the operation, and
5) arrangements for international usage, etc
EXPANSION OF THE J-PARC CENTER.
The J-PARC Center started its operation since February of 2006.
Recently the expansion of this J-PARC Center was approved by the
Steering Committee for J-PARC. Although the final members of the
J-PARC in JFY2007 have not been fully identified, it was agreed that
five divisions (Accelerator, Materials and Life Science, Particle and
Nuclear Physics, Safety, and Administration) would start their full
functions in JFY2007. The total anticipated number of full employees
will exceed 200 and the total number of people working in the Center
will be larger than 300. Further expansion is planned in JFY2008 when
the facility starts its operation.
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2. <<Accelerator Group>> by Yoshishige YAMAZAKI
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THE LINAC BEAM COMMISSIONING STARTED AS SCHEDULED,
ACCELERATING THE BEAMS UP TO 50 MEV BY THE END OF 2006.
On November 20th, 2006, the H-minus beams were injected into the 3-MeV
RFQ and accelerated there within two hours. On November 21st, it was
confirmed by the time-of-flight measurement that the beam energy is
2.9 MeV. After the tuning of the Medium Energy Beam Transport, the
first tank of the Drift-Tube Linac (DTL) Accelerated the beams up to
20 MeV on December 19th, and the second and third tanks of DTL brought
them up to 50 MeV on December 20th. A peak current of 5 mA, a beam
pulse length of 20 micro-sec, and a repetition rate of 2.5 Hz have been
typically used for the machine-safety reason rather than the full
specifications of 30 mA, 500 micro-s, and 25 Hz, respectively, since
the beam loss and the damage of the accelerator components are
expected at the beginning. Amazingly no steering tuning was necessary
to guide the beams through the SDTL parts and beam transport to the
beam dump located at the last end of the linac, 330 m downstream. This
confirmed the quadrupole magnets located in the DTL and others are
aligned precisely. The precise alignment of the beam focusing
components is vital for minimizing the beam emittance, beam halo, and
the beam loss. Our goal is to obtain the 181-MeV beam by mid June in
order to start the beam injection into the synchrotron this fall.
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3. <<Control Group>> by Hiroshi YOSHIKAWA
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BEAM INTERLOCK AND CONTROL SYSTEM HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED
FOR THE LINAC BEAM COMMISSIONING
Prior to the linac beam commissioning since Nov. 20, 2007, a machine
protection system (MPS) of the linac, which is a beam interlock system
for accelerator protection against beam bombardment and is necessary
for beam commissioning, have been completed. The MPS accumulates the
interlock signals from beam loss monitors, RF and vacuum control
systems, and magnet power supplies. The response time was confirmed to
be less than ten micro-seconds, which is achieved with effective noise
reduction and is quick enough for accelerator protection. Moreover,
real time observation of beam loss becomes available at the operating
display.
Along with the beam commissioning, construction and operation of the
control system have been carried out with a user-friendly GUI system.
Although construction of a combined system with control system and
simulation system is under way, the linac beam has been successfully
accelerated without any correction for steering magnets because of
the excellent alignment of the linac. The development of the control
system has come to the second stage, and the main workforce has
shifted to the development of advanced applications in which the
database is used.
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4. <<Nuclear and Particle Physics Group>>
by Takashi KOBAYASHI and Jun IMAZATO
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NEUTRINO BEAMLINE TUNNEL COMPLETED
The 200-m long extraction beam tunnel has recently been completed at
the neutrino facility. This tunnel, with a nearly 90-degree arc, will be
equipped with super- and normal-conducting magnets and deliver a fast
inward extracted proton beam from the synchrotron to the target. In
the completed tunnel precise surveying and point-marking have been
performed by transferring standard GPS points from outside.
Subsequently, the civil construction of the target station has been
started with excavation of the ground. The installation of the large
He gas vessel is scheduled for the summer.
NEUTRINO HORN LONG TERM TEST IS GOING ON
Following the first success of excitation with full specification of
320kA in the last summer, the neutrino beamline construction team is
now running a long-term operation test of the 1st horn system since
the beginning of last December. A water-cooling system of nearly final
design is equipped and system endurance is being tested at the rated
current of 320kA by monitoring several characteristics such as
temperature rise and mechanical tightness. By the middle of January
220 thousand times of excitation were recorded without any serious
trouble. The test continues to March when one million times of
excitation will be reached.
2nd PAC MEETING WAS HELD
The second meeting of the program advisory committee (PAC) for the
main ring experiments was held on Jan. 10-12 at KEK.
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5. <<Neutron Science Group>> by Yujiro IKEDA
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MLF BUILDING CONSTRUCTION HAS COMPLETED.
FULL-SCALE TENDERING FOR THE NEUTRON INSTRUMENT
CONSTRUCTION HAS STARTED.
On the MLF building construction, it has progressed to complete the
floor coating, along with equipment installation at the downstream
area. The electric power was started to be supplied to the building.
The mercury target container, which has been under re-fabrication
to recover distortion and extra residual stress due to the welding
process, is to be completed soon. A large water cooled shielding
assembly was installed in the He vessel. The placement error was
within +- 1mm, which satisfies the specification. Almost all
components, such as magnets, power supplies, vacuum system, proton
beam window, beam monitors, control system, inter-lock system, cooling
system, etc., have been manufactured and installed in the 3GeV proton
beam transport tunnel. Calls for tendering have been under way on
several instruments, i.e., Super-High Resolution Powder Diffractometer,
Low Energy Chopper Spectrometer, Residual Stress Analysis
Diffractometer, Four Seasons Spectrometer, Single Crystal
Diffractometer, and High Intensity Powder Diffractometer. The
current situation concerning an increase of the raw materials prices
is bringing serious difficulty into smooth bidding. The experimental
stations extending from the main building on both sides are designed
precisely. An international collaboration framework was established
between JAEA and CCLRC(RAL/ISIS) on the development of the
pulse neutron instrument.
The 5th International Advisory Committee meeting on neutron source
technology was held. The committee gave valuable advice concerning
the test program, maintenance scenario, safety control system, etc.
Scintillation detector characteristics were tested using the ISIS
neutron beam line. SiTCP data acquisition system developed at KEK
will be adopted for the neutron spectrometer of J-PARC. It is
expected that enormous amounts of scattered neutron data can be
collected through a network with high speed and stable transfer rate.
A super-mirror guide tube which is to be inserted into a shutter gate
of the low energy spectrometer was fabricated by using a large area
ion beam sputtering device in JAEA.
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6. << Muon Science Group>>by Yasuhiro Miyake
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INSTALLATION OF THE BASEPLATE AND ALIGNMENT PLATES
AT THE LOCATION OF THE TEMPORAL GATE
Since the temporal gate for the temporal access to the M2 proton beam
tunnel was closed on the end of June 2006, construction of the MLF
building around the temporal gate has been proceeding. During its
construction, we embedded ducts for the air circulation and we
installed a baseplate with a precision of XY +- 0.5 mm, and six sets
of the alignment plates with a precision of XY +- 0.1 mm, Z +- 0.1 mm.
Also, we are about to install the corresponding guide shields in the
end of December, 2006.
The fifth J-PARC Muon Science Experimental Facility Advisory
Committee, so called "MuSAC" will be held on 2007, Jan.11-13 at KEK.
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7. <<Nuclear Transmutation Group>> by Hiroyuki OIGAWA
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PROGRESS OF R&D ON SPALLATION TARGET AND CONCEPTUAL
DESIGN OF TRANSMUTATION PHYSICS EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY
As for the development of the lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) spallation
target, the international MEGAPIE (MEGAwatt PIlot Experiment) test
has been successfully completed at Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI),
Switzerland. Regular operation of the LBE target at 700 kW started
from August 21 and continued until December 21. The accumulated
proton charge amounts to 2.8Ah. The successful behavior of the target
during irradiation will provide a unique relevant design and
operational feedback to ADS Community. JAEA is one of the MEGAPIE
partners.
Please refer to the web site:
http://megapie.web.psi.ch/
The analysis of deposition on the inner surface of the stainless steel
tube of the lead-bismuth loop facility was conducted to understand
the corrosion behavior of the materials. Ni-enriched deposition layer
was found and successfully identified by FE-SEM (Field Emission
Scanning Electron Microscope) at the high-temperature part. Ni was
considered to dissolve from the stainless steel tube.
As for the conceptual design study of the Transmutation Physics
Experimental Facility (TEF-P), the experimental equipment to deal
with minor actinide (MA) fuels is being investigated. By coupling
error files of nuclear data with sensitivity analyses on the reactor
physics parameters of transmutation systems, the effectiveness and
representiveness of experiments using MA in TEF-P are being discussed
for both an accelerator-driven system (ADS) and a fast breeder reactor
(FBR).
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8. <<Radiation Safety Group>> by Taichi MIURA and Hiroshi NAKASHIMA
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APPLICATION FOR 3 GeV SYNCHROTRON OPERATION LICENCE
IS READY TO SUBMIT TO MEXT
The application for the operation of the 3 GeV synchrotron is ready to
submit to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and
Technology (MEXT) in a week or so. J-PARC has already received
the operation licenses for LINAC and the Switchyard in the Hadron
facility. Before the application, the radiation safety scheme and
radiation facilities were discussed by the Safety Deliberative
Committee on Radiation Safety of J-PARC on December 7. Several
hearings were held at the Ibaraki Prefecture Government and MEXT in
the last two months. Before the submission to MEXT, the plan must be
officially submitted to the Tokai-Mura Municipal Government and the
Ibaraki Prefecture Government.
The 3rd Expert Committee on the safety of the J-PARC neutrino
production target was held on December 26, 2006. In the committee, the
following two items were mainly reviewed:
(1) maintenance procedure of radioactive equipment in the target
station; (2) radiation safety aspect of the carbon target. The branch
of the radiation control office has opened inside the Main Control
Building (EXT:3001). The registration for radiation workers at J-PARC,
radiation education, various works in the radiation control area, and
registration for visitors are handled at this office.
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9. Announcement of Symposia and Meetings
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5th Neutron Technical Advisory Committee (NTAC) was held on 20-22
November.
2nd Nuclear, Particle Physics Program Advisory Committee (PAC) was
held on Jan.10-12 at KEK.
5th Muon Science Experimental Facility Advisory Committee (MuSAC)
was held on Jan.11-13 at KEK
Accelerator Technical Advisory Committee (ATAC) will be held on
1-3 March
International Advisory Committee (IAC) will be held on 5,6 March
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10. <<Editorial Note>>
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Editorial Board:
Masatoshi ARAI (chair): masatoshi.arai at j-parc.jp
Koji YOSHIMURA: koji.yoshimura at kek.jp
Yujiro IKEDA: yujiro.ikeda at jaea.go.jp
Nobuo OUCHI: nobuo.ouchi at jaea.go.jp
Shinya SAWADA: shinya.sawada at kek.jp
English Editor: Dick Mischke mischke at triumf.ca
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