The International Linear Collider will need about 16,000 superconducting radiofrequency cavities, devices that accelerate electrons and their antiparticles, positrons, along microwaves to near speed of light. These cavities are made out of pure niobium, which means the ILC community needs 500 tonnes of high-purity niobium processed into nice, smooth sheets. In the industrial session held […]
Prime Minister gives address at the ILC symposium in Japan
On 15 December, the International Linear Collider clearly became a hot topic in Japanese newspapers: Yoshihiko Noda, the Prime Minister of Japan, gave a speech at the ILC symposium held in Tokyo. This symposium was jointly hosted by the Advanced Accelerator Association promoting science and technology (AAA) and the Federation of Diet members to promote […]
Is the Higgs enough?
The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is running extremely well and its two general-purpose detectors ATLAS and CMS are collecting data at a much faster pace than expected. The LHC successfully concluded its 2011 proton run an the end of last month. The ILC physics community is preparing for the results expected to emerge from […]
Proposing a fishcake shape
Kamaboko is a type of Japanese fishcake with a distinctive loaf shape, usually served sliced thin with dipping sauce such as soy sauce and wasabi or as a topping for noodles. So what does kamaboko have to do with the ILC? It is the shape of the newly proposed ILC tunnel design for an Asian […]
ILC detector R&D in Japan stays strong
From 12 to 14 September, about 60 scientists gathered at Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, to attend the kick-off meeting for a global R&D programme of a state-of-the-art detector system for the ILC. A large part of ILC detector R&D had been implemented with grants awarded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), […]
Welcome back, PCMAG!
PCMAG arrives for a fundamental overhaul at KEK
The superconducting magnet PCMAG came back to KEK on 10 August after four years of use in an experiment at the DESY test beam facility. PCMAG, which stands for persistent-current superconducting magnet, was originally developed as one of the prototype magnets for the BESS (the balloon-borne experiment with a superconducting spectrometer) experiment, a joint US-Japan […]
How to keep cavities blemish-free
Worrying about blemishes on the skin is not just an issue for people who pursue personal physical beauty, but also for accelerator scientists. Scientists and engineers at KEK have found a way to deal with unwanted stains on the inner surface of superconducting cavities, which might be one of the causes of performance limitation. Since […]
A recovering northeast Japan turns its sights to the ILC
Three months after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake in early March in northeast area, or Tohoku, of Japan, more than 90 thousand people are yet suffering at the shelters and almost 7,500 people are still missing. But people have kept up the strength to recover, and are slowly but surely working to overcome the disaster. The devastated […]
SLAC scientists recover their systems at ATF
KEK’s accelerator test facility, ATF, has many components installed on its beamline, many of which come from other laboratories around the world. From 21 May to 6 June, two scientists from the US laboratory SLAC, Janice Nelson and Glen White, came to ATF to check and recover systems that they are responsible for: the cavity […]
Checkout of ATF starts with test beam
On the evening of 26 May 2011, KEK scientists and engineers confirmed that a test beam successfully steered through the linac during the commissioning test of the Accelerator Test Facility (ATF). “It went relatively smoothly, reached the end of linac in a half-hour or so,” said Nobuhiro Terunuma of KEK, Japan, the new spokesperson for […]