Rika Takahashi | 9 December 2010Designing and fabricating an optimal accelerating cavity is not so simple. There are two important parameters scientists are looking for: the gradient of 35 megavolts per meter (MV/m) and the quality factor (Q0) of greater than 0.8×10^10. A Japanese cavity now fulfilled those requirements for the first time at a test which took place at the Superconducting radiofrequency Test Facility (STF) at KEK, adding momentum towards future mass production.
Category: Feature | Tagged: accelerating gradient, cavity gradient, KEK, Kyoto camera, nine-cell cavity, quality factor, STF
Rika Takahashi | 24 November 2010What will happen when the ILC is built? One hopes discoveries will change the way we see the universe. It will answer the questions about what the universe is made of. And maybe it will help generate new Nobel Prize winners...
Category: Feature | Tagged: ILC site, Japan
Leah Hesla and Rika Takahashi | 28 October 2010Fermilab and KEK scientists recently hooked up a new cavity tuning system to the various cavities in the so-called cavity-tuner zoo at KEK. This zoo, comprising eight superconducting radiofrequency cavities fabricated by four different vendors from three different regions, was the testing ground for a new development in what is called Lorentz force detuning (LFD) compensation.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: Fermilab, KEK, LFD compensation, Lorentz force detuning
Rika Takahashi | 30 September 2010On 27 September, the Japan's local winners of the first Global Particle Photo Walk were announced. This Photowalk was held at five particle physics laboratories in the world on 7 August (see Feature Story this week). The winning photo taken by Yuki Hayashi features scientists working at the Accelerator Test Facility (ATF) at KEK. But they are not Japanese scientists. They are three of the nine French scientists and engineers who were visiting the ATF from the end of July to install and test their four-mirror optical cavity.
Category: Feature | Tagged: ATF, Japan, photography, photowalk
Rika Takahashi | 26 August 2010Vietnam and Japan have been nurturing cooperative relationship in many fields for many years. For the field of science and technology, both governments signed the Japan-Vietnam Science and Technology Co-operation Agreement to promote and deepen the co-operation in science and technology in 2006. Following year, Shinzo Abe, then Prime minister of Japan, proposed at the East Asia Summit (EAS) to launch a youth exchange initiative totaling 35 billion Yen over five years including the invitation to 6,000 young people from the member countries of ASEAN and EAS to Japan, which was accepted with great welcome. Now, these invitations are bringing many Vietnamese scientists to KEK.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: Asia, EAS, East Asia Summit, Japan, Vietnam
Rika Takahashi | 8 July 2010On 1-2 June, the review on the design study of the ILC conventional facility in mountain regions was held at KEK, Japan, and the final review report was submitted last week by the review panel lead by Vic Kuchler of Fermilab to Seiya Yamaguchi, head of KEK's Linear Collider Office and to Marc Ross, project manager of the Global Design Effort (GDE) in charge of the conventional facility study (GDE/CFS).
Category: Feature | Tagged: Asia, CFS, conventional facilities, single tunnel
Rika Takahashi | 1 July 2010The ILC will have an ultra-cold and complex heart made of niobium, a rare, soft, grey, and ductile transition metal. Some 18,000 radio frequency (RF) accelerating cavities for the ILC will be made of niobium, which becomes superconductor when cooled to nearly absolute zero. The global annual production of niobium in 2007 was 58,000 tonnes, and it is expected to grow up to 45 percent more in 2010 with a positive trend towards economic recovery. Although it is a 'rare' material, the reserves of niobium are assumed to be enough to cover the current world demand for 500 years
Category: Feature | Tagged: industrialisation, niobium, SRF industrialisation
Rika Takahashi | 27 May 2010One day before the beginning of the biggest ever – and first international – Particle Accelerator Conference, IPAC 2010, a satellite meeting was held with scientists and specialists from laboratories and industries around the world on the superconducting radiofrequency (SCRF) cavity technology and industrialisation.
Category: Feature | Tagged: IPAC, IPAC 2010, Particle Accelerator Conference, SRF industrialisation, SRF technology
Rika Takahashi | 20 May 2010On 17 March, the Science Council of Japan, a special organisation of scientists under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister for the purpose of promoting science and having it reflected into national policy, released a recommendation on the major research programmes heading in the mid-term-about ten years, and issued a "Master Plan" (in Japanese) where they listed the top large-scale facilities and programmes. The list covers all fields from human and social science to biotechnology, energy and earth science, and of course, physics and engineering. The Council has closely examined a total of 285 big-science proposed projects with more than ten billion yen construction budget and big research programmes with more than one billion yen operational budget, and finally chose 43 of them as Japan's priority. Among those, nine projects listed KEK as one of their implementing agencies, including the upgrade of the KEKB accelerator, J-PARC, next-generation light source projects and the International Linear Collider.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: Japan, Science Council of Japan
Rika Takahashi | 29 April 2010April is the season of beginnings in Japan: beginning of spring, beginning of the school year, and beginning of the business fiscal year. Tokyo is not quite in the beginning of spring yet, as snow fell on Saturday, 17 April, matching a 41-year-old record for the season's latest snowfall. Regardless of the late arrival of spring, KEK's Linear Collider Project Office kicked off the new fiscal year with a new head of the Office: Seiya Yamaguchi.
Category: Around the World | Tagged: Japan, KEK
