Eel fish, sliced and broiled with sugar and soy sauce, is a popular Japanese cuisine.

A few hundred years ago, in the Edo era of Japan, shops and houses were taxed according to the width of their buildings facing the street. As a result, people started building very narrow and long buildings. Called "unagi-no-nedoko" in Japanese, this building style translates to "eel's bed" in English and resembles the newly designed ATF2 beamline at KEK.

As opposed to being designed for tax purposes, the ATF2 beamline is a long linear shape around 55 metres in length and aims to minimize the width of the radiation controlled area, surrounded by a concrete shield.

On 30 May to 1 June, the ATF2 Project meeting was held at KEK, following the first meeting held at SLAC last February. KEK's Toshiaki Tauchi, Sub Deputy of ATF2, said, "The purpose of this meeting was to discuss design details about the construction, which will start in 2008." At the meeting, participants tested the layout of the design on paper from the viewpoint of beam optics.

More than 110 people from 25 research facilities around the world participate in the ATF2 project. Approximately 40 members gathered at KEK. Over the course of three days, they discussed eight themes. Grahame Blair of John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science at Royal Holloway University of London said, "We had a constructive and useful discussion about the ATF2 Project." After finishing the meeting, they agreed to freeze the layout until July. "Reconfirmation of the charge and authentication of the design schedule were performed too," said KEK's Nobukazu Toge. The next meeting will be held this winter.

After the discussions, some issues still remain unresolved. The first issue is the coexistence of running ATF and the construction of ATF2. "We need to optimize this binary," said Toge. "In the current schedule, we cannot avoid this problem. ATF will perform a first stage test of ATF2 and adjustments will be necessary. It is necessary to let a certain ATF beam program complete before the construction ATF2."

The second issue is a budget matter. "Technologically the project is ready for setup, but money is necessary to really begin a work," Tauchi said. "It is a key question that needs to be coordinated within institutions in order to procure a budget."

ATF2 is a facility which aims to achieve a 37nm beam size and control of beam position at a 2nm level. "I hope we train many students using ATF2, and they will be human resources for the ILC," said Tauchi. "ATF2 not only links to the ILC but also links to other projects which are important for nanotechnology development.

Researchers originally referred to the long and narrow area in the ATF facility that is used for power supplies and electronics equipment as "Unagi-No-Nedoko." Now it seems that the tradition will be continued with ATF2 as well.

ATF2 Project Meeting

-- Nobuko Kobayashi, KEK