[Neutron] J-PARC Newsletter No. 69

shibata.kaoru shibata.kaoru at jaea.go.jp
Tue Feb 13 02:53:20 CET 2018


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     J-PARC Project Newsletter
                                                  No.69, January 2018
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]

 MORE EXCITEMENT WITH HIGHER POWER BEAMS AND MORE USERS.

2. [Accelerator Division]

 STABLE OPERATION OF THE ACCELERATORS FROM OCTOBER TO DECEMBER.

3. [Particle and Nuclear Physics Division]

 TOPICAL WORKSHOP ON HADRON PHYSICS AND INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL ON 
STRANGENESS NUCLEAR PHYSICS.
 J-PARC NEUTRINO FACILITY IN OPERATION WITH 475 KW RECORD BEAM POWER.
 STATUS OF THE COHERENT MUON TO ELECTRON TRANSITION (COMET).
 STATUS OF THE MUON G-2/ ELECTRIC DIPOLE MOMENT (EDM) (E34).

4. [Materials and Life Science Division]

 NEUTRON PRODUCTION OPERATON AT 300 KW; BACK TO 2014 LEVEL.
 THE 9TH AONSA NEUTRON SCHOOL / THE 2ND NEUTRON AND MUON SCHOOL WAS 
HELD. 
 260 NEUTRON GENERAL PROPOSALS HAVE BEEN RECEIVED FOR THE 2018A 
PERIOD.
 USER PROGRAM RESUMED FOR 2017B TERM.

5. [Nuclear Transmutation Division]

 SHOWING ACCELERATOR-DRIVEN SYSTEM IN SANCTUARY OF NUCLEAR ENERGY.

6. [Safety Division]

 THE EMERGENCY DRILL ASSUMING A RADIATION WORKER CONTAMINATION WAS 
HELD.
 FISCAL 2017 J-PARC SAFETY AUDIT.

7. [Editorial Note]


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1. [Overview] by Naohito SAITO
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 MORE EXCITEMENT WITH HIGHER POWER BEAMS AND MORE USERS

     We have started the new year's operation after about three weeks 
of shutdown including the end-of-year/new-year break.
The beam power at the Materials and Life Science Facility (MLF) is 
now at 400 kW, which is 40 percent of the design power. We have moved 
to this new stage of operation after careful examination of the 
300-kW operation since last October. The current target for neutron 
production a.k.a. target#8, is behaving as we expected based on the 
model calculation carefully done by the target group. As we 
accumulate more experience at 400-kW operation, we intend to gain 
our confidence to go to 500 kW, which is the goal of the target 
operation for users before this summer. We would like to continue 
every effort to realize stable high-power operation at MLF.
     The Main Ring (MR) is being operated for slow-extraction. Newly 
installed electro-static septum (ESS) has been carefully conditioned 
in situ after intense conditioning on the test bench. The new ESS is 
equipped with a more reliable protection system against a possible 
short-circuit due to a break of the ribbon, which forms the boundary 
of the electric field for beam extraction. Now 50-kW beam is 
delivered to users at the Hadron Experimental Facility to produce 
more results.
     We have just returned from the European Spallation Source (ESS) 
in Lund, Sweden. We held the 2nd collaboration meeting with ESS. In 
addition to the general progress report from each side, the meeting 
focused on the accelerator, instrument, target, and radiation safety. 
Obviously, J-PARC and ESS have a lot in common and we have many joint 
activities already. We concluded that we should explore additional 
open exchanges between the two facilities.
     In addition to this international collaboration, we are 
strengthening our tie with universities. There will be more 
university branches at J-PARC, which will provide more opportunities 
for universities to fully utilize J-PARC facilities for their 
research and education. We are also preparing several cross-
appointment cases with universities.
     Based on the high-power beams, supported by the robust targetry, 
and even more powered by the collaborations with other institutions 
both international and domestic, we would like to share more 
excitement with users and the public!


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2. [Accelerator Division] by Kazuo HASEGAWA
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 STABLE OPERATION OF THE ACCELERATORS FROM OCTOBER TO DECEMBER

     A new operation run started at the beginning of October after 
the summer shutdown. Accelerator study work at beam currents of 5 mA, 
50 mA, and 40 mA was carried out at the linac. The study work 
followed at the 3 GeV Rapid Cycling Synchrotron (RCS) and Main Ring 
synchrotron (MR) at the linac beam current of 40 mA, which was for 
user operation. The main purposes of the study were to reproduce the 
accelerator parameters, confirmation of performance of some new 
components installed during the summer shutdown, new parameter survey 
for lower beam loss, etc.
     On October 17, the beam delivery to the neutrino experimental 
facility (NU) was resumed at the beam power of 160 kW. The beam power 
was increased to 450 kW as the vacuum pressure improved at the MR. 
After the fine tuning of the MR, we delivered beam at 470 kW, which 
was at a similar level as before the summer shutdown. In the runs 
after the summer shutdown one year ago, we had several longer beam 
trips due to some failures at the injection septum magnet power 
supply, at the new power supply for the quadrupole magnets, and at 
the radio frequency sources. We made some improvements and treatment 
for these problems. The availability in the runs of October to 
December for the NU was improved to about 86 percent this year while 
it was 75 percent in 2016.
     The neutron production target was replaced with a newly designed 
one during the summer shutdown. On October 24, the user operation of 
the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) was 
resumed at the same power level of 150 kW as before the summer 
shutdown. After a few days of pilot operation, we increased the power 
to 300 kW on October 27. The operation was rather smooth until the 
morning of December 22, as scheduled. The availability of the MLF was 
high: about 91 percent from October to December, since we had no 
serious troubles at the linac, the RCS and the MLF.


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3. [Particle and Nuclear Physics Division] by H. SAKO, T. TAKAHASHI,
T. ISHIDA, S. MIHARA, and T. MIBE
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 TOPICAL WORKSHOP ON HADRON PHYSICS AND INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL ON 
STRANGENESS NUCLEAR PHYSICS (H. SAKO and T. TAKAHASHI)

     Topical workshop on hadron physics and International School on 
Strangeness Nuclear Physics were held at J-PARC.
Reimei workshop "Hadronic resonances and dense matter" hosted by 
Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC), JAEA, and co-hosted by 
J-PARC was held on Dec. 11-13 at Ibaraki Quantum Beam Research Center 
(IQBRC) in Tokai
(http://asrc.jaea.go.jp/soshiki/gr/hadron/workshop/reimei2017/). 
There were many interesting invited talks and lively discussions were 
conducted on the topics of hadron experiments at J-PARC. In addition, 
there were poster presentations mainly by graduate students. The 
number of participants was 74, including 28 international 
participants.
     International School for Strangeness Nuclear Physics (SNP School 
2017) was successfully held from Dec. 14 to 15 at Tokai 
(http://www.rcnp.osaka-u.ac.jp/~snp2017/index.html). This is the 
sixth school starting from 2012 at Tokai and Sendai. Lectures in a 
wide range of fields 
(on quarks, hadrons, hyper-nuclei, cold atoms, and astrophysics) 
were given by five leading physicists. Also, participants visited 
experimental facilities at J-PARC. School students gave poster and 
oral presentations on their research. Hashimoto Prize named in honor 
of Prof. Hashimoto, the founder of this school, went to Mr. 
Yuichi Toyama (Tohoku Univ.) for his good presentation, and School 
Incentive Prizes went to 4 other students. Asian Nuclear Physics 
Association (ANPhA) Prize also went to Mr. Toyama and Mr. Tokieda. 
The number of participants was 63 including school students, 
lecturers, and organizers. The next school will be held in autumn 
2018 at Osaka University.

 J-PARC NEUTRINO FACILITY IN OPERATION WITH 475 KW RECORD BEAM POWER
(by T. ISHIDA)

     The neutrino experimental facility (neutrino beamline) at J-PARC 
ran its operation from October to December for the T2K experiment. 
Recently the beam power has reached a new record value, 475 kW. The 
beam is stable in the operation with anti-neutrino mode. The 
accumulated protons-on-target (POT) is about 3.8x10^20 as of Dec. 20. 
In coming 2018 spring to summer we aim to double the statistics of 
anti-neutrino mode data, to search for the anti-electron neutrino 
appearance signal.

 STATUS OF THE COHERENT MUON TO ELECTRON TRANSITION (COMET)
(by S. MIHARA)

     The COMET experiment aims to search for the lepton-flavor 
violating muon reaction, mu-e conversion, with sensitivity better 
than 10^{-14} in Phase I.
     Construction of the new proton beam line is underway to 
transport a specially prepared pulsed proton beam to the COMET 
experiment. Concrete casting for the beam line wall in the Hadron
Hall will be completed in Dec. 2017. Beam line elements installation 
will start in 2018.
     Detector preparation is also in progress by the collaboration.
As most of the detector elements have to be located in a high-
radiation environment in COMET, a careful check of the electronics 
components against radiation is mandatory. The test is conducted 
using both gamma-ray and neutron sources.

 STATUS OF THE MUON G-2/ ELECTRIC DIPOLE MOMENT (EDM) (E34) 
(by T. MIBE)

     The E34 collaboration prepares for precision measurements of 
muon anomalous magnetic moment and electric dipole moment. The 
collaboration made preparations for a document summarizing updates to 
incorporate recommendations given by the focused review committee, 
and they revised the technical design report (TDR) accordingly.
     The first demonstration of muon acceleration with Radio 
Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) was successful at the Materials and Life 
Science Experimental Facility (MLF). In this test, negatively charged 
muonium atoms at sub-keV energy were accelerated to 90 keV with the 
RFQ for the first time in the world.


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4. [Materials and Life Science Division] by Toshiji KANAYA
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 NEUTRON PRODUCTION OPERATON AT 300 KW; BACK TO 2014 LEVEL

     1) Neutron Source
     On October 24, the neutron production with a new mercury target 
vessel began for the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility 
(MLF) user programs at 300 kW. Current mercury target vessel has an 
improved monolithic structure at the joint with ribs between the 
inner mercury vessel and outer water shroud in view of removing the 
number of weld lines that could be a factor of crack propagation from 
high thermal stress generated by repeated beam trips during the
operating period. It also has a narrow mercury flow channel at the 
front of the target and equips a gas micro-bubbles generation system 
as a measure of suppressing pitting damage induced by high power 
pulsed proton beam injection. The user program ended on December 22 
with a good availability of 90.8% of the scheduled beam time of 52 
days. Next neutron production operation will begin on January 10, 
2018 after a short maintenance.

 THE 9TH AONSA NEUTRON SCHOOL / THE 2ND NEUTRON AND MUON SCHOOL WAS 
HELD 

 260 NEUTRON GENERAL PROPOSALS HAVE BEEN RECEIVED FOR THE 2018A PERIOD

     2) Neutron Instruments and Science
     After the summer shutdown, user program of 2017A period was 
resumed from October 24. From November 16, 2017B period was started. 
>From 2017B period, a part of VIN ROSE (the spin-echo suite at BL06) 
has been added to the user program.
     The 9th AONSA Neutron School / the 2nd Neutron and Muon School 
was held in November 16-20. 49 young researchers and graduate 
students from Korea, Australia, Indonesia, India, China, Taiwan, 
Thailand, Malaysia, New Zealand, Viet Nam, Nepal, United Kingdom, and 
the Russian Federation, as well as Japan participated in the school. 
>From the neutron groups, 10 instruments contributed to hands-on 
experiments and 43 of 49 participants enjoyed neutron experiments.
     Call for General proposals and New User Promotion proposals for 
the 2018A period was closed on November 7 and we received 260 neutron 
proposals. Those proposals will be sent to the Neutron Science 
Proposal Review Committee / the Proposal Evaluation Committee for 
reviewing process. Final results will be sent to users in February.
     Announcement on call for Long Term proposals with beamtime 
allocation starting in 2018B is opened. All proposers are required a
two-step submission of their proposals, and pre-submission term is 
from January 12 to February 1. 

 USER PROGRAM RESUMED FOR 2017B TERM

     3) Muon Science Facility (MUSE)
     Following the completion of maintenance work at the end of the
summer shutdown, J-PARC resumed proton beam delivery to the MLF 
facility in late October, 2017. Thanks to the successful replacement 
of the neutron target vessel (which was in trouble previously), MLF 
started to accept proton beams at 300 kW after a year of low power 
operation. The single-pulse time structure was maintained for the 
accelerator operation at this beam power, allowing muon users to keep 
enjoying tidy time-differential muSR spectra with improved muon flux. 
The user program was smoothly switched from 2017A to 2017B term after 
a one-day maintenance on November 16, 2017. MUSE jointly hosted 
AONSA/Neutron & Muon School held in November 16-20, accepting five 
young researchers/ grad students from abroad for the muon course. 
They enjoyed a series of introductory lectures and hands-on muSR 
experiments on a sample of iridium oxide, learning how to use muons 
for checking out magnetism with the ARTEMIS spectrometer installed at 
the S1 area in MLF.


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5. [Nuclear Transmutation Division] by Toshinobu SASA
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 SHOWING ACCELERATOR-DRIVEN SYSTEM IN SANCTUARY OF NUCLEAR ENERGY

     In the middle of September, General Conference of International 
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was held in IAEA headquarters in Vienna, 
Austria. Decision makers for nuclear energy and application in every 
member state were gathered in the conference. Japanese government  
also attended the conference and also set up the exhibition booth to 
inform Japanese activities for nuclear applications. The theme of the 
exhibition is "Life, Safety and Prosperity". Based on the lessons 
learned from the accidents in Fukushima-daiichi Nuclear Power Plant 
(NPP), Japan's efforts to pursue the peaceful uses of nuclear power 
for people's livelihoods, safety and prosperity, was provided to the 
government officials gathered from all over the world and experts in 
the field of nuclear science and technology. Accelerator-driven 
System (ADS) was exhibited as one of the showpieces for innovative 
technological application of nuclear energy, together with the latest 
3.5 generation pressurized water reactor concept, underwater robot to 
survey the damaged reactor vessels in Fukushima-daiichi NPP etc. More 
than 800 specialists visited our booth and learned the progress of 
nuclear science after the Fukushima accidents. The model of ADS is 
installed as a permanent exhibit at the entrance of the lead-bismuth 
experiment lab in J-PARC. 


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6. [Safety Division]
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 THE EMERGENCY DRILL ASSUMING A RADIATION WORKER CONTAMINATION WAS 
HELD

     The emergency drill assuming a radiation exposure accident was 
held on Nov. 16.
It was assumed that a radiation worker was contaminated by water 
containing tritium in the Neutrino Experimental Facility and the 
worker needed decontamination of his/her whole body.
In training, measures to prevent the contamination spread at the 
site, transportation and decontamination of the contaminated worker, 
and internal exposure measurement by exhalation measurement were 
performed.

 FISCAL 2017 J-PARC SAFETY AUDIT

     The fiscal 2017 J-PARC safety audit was conducted by two new 
auditors on Dec. 4. The center director, deputy director, and the 
safety division explained the outline of safety management work at 
the J-PARC Center. Furthermore, the Material and Life Science 
Division was interviewed about the safe work operated by staff 
members of the neutron source section and issues concerning the
safety of users. The auditors gave us valuable suggestions for future 
safety efforts.


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7. [Editorial Note]
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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Editorial Board:
Toshifumi TSUKAMOTO (Chair): toshifumi.tsukamoto at kek.jp 
Kaoru SHIBATA: shibata.kaoru@ jaea.go.jp 
Takashi ITO: itou.takashi at jaea.go.jp 
Dick MISCHKE (English Editor): mischke at triumf.ca 
Junko BEANBLOSSOM (Secretary): beanblossom.junko at jaea.go.jp
++++++++++++++++End of Letter++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++






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