J-PARC: recovering from earthquake
The European Physical Society sends its heartfelt congratulations to the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex [J-PARC], for their progress in recovering from the heavy damage suffered during the tragic earthquake of March last year.
“In May 2011, we planned to restore beams at J-PARC by the end of December 2011. Since then, all the J-PARC people have worked day and night, and even weekends. Finally, on 9 December, the switch of the Linac was turned on, and the first proton beam after the earthquake was produced,” announced J-PARC Director Shoji Nagamiya earlier this month.
Beams were indeed restored, at the end of last year, for both the Hg neutron spallation target and the 50 GeV synchrotron. In addition the commissioning of the neutrino beam line was restarted albeit without horn operation, due to a power supply breakdown.
What had seemed like an impossible undertaking has now been accomplished in an astonishingly short space of time. This is excellent news for the whole physics community.
J-PARC is operated jointly by the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization [KEK] and the Japan Atomic Energy Agency [JAEA]. For more information, please visit the J-PARC website.
