Current Status and Performance of the J-PARC Accelerators

J-PARC (Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex) is a multi-purpose research facility for materials and life sciences, nuclear and particle physics, and nuclear engineering with extremely high power proton beams of 1 MW. The accelerator complex consists of a 400-MeV linac, a 3-GeV Rapid Cycling Synchrotron (RCS), and a 50-GeV Main Ring synchrotron (MR). Its goals are to provide MW-class beams at 3 GeV and at several 10 GeV, while it is a challenge to localize and suppress beam loss to the level to allow hands-on maintenance of accelerator components. The RCS scheme is adopted to realize them, which is advantageous over conventional Accumulation Ring (AR) regarding less beam loss problems due to lower beam current and easier construction and operation of a linac. RCS, however, required various challenging technologies such as ceramic ducts to reduce eddy current effects, high field Radio Frequency (RF) system, and paint injection technique (an injection scheme to reduce phase space density of the beam) to reduce space charge effects. The linac has also unique technologies to minimize beam loss, such as compact electromagnet Drift Tube Quadrupoles (DTQ’s) to control beam envelopes precisely, and a fast beam suspending system in Machine Protection System (MPS) with Radio Frequency Quadrupole linac (RFQ). The beam commissioning of the linac started in Nov. 2006, and its design energy of 181 MeV in the first construction phase was achieved in Jan. 2007. RCS beam commissioning started in Sep. 2007 and the beam was accelerated to the designed energy of 3 GeV in Oct. 2007. MR beam commissioning started in May 2008, and the beam acceleration to 30 GeV was established in Dec. 2008. The first neutron and muon beams were produced in May and Sep. 2008, respectively, at Materials and Life science experimental Facility (MLF). The linac commissioning has resulted in very stable beam with short down time. RCS commissioning quickly achieved beam acceleration and extraction, and paint injections are being studied intensively. RCS recorded the highest beam power of 0.21 MW in Sep. 2008 with beam loss well localized at the collimators. The linac beam energy will be upgraded to 400 MeV with Annular Coupled Structure linac (ACS) in order to increase the beam power to 1 MW. In the second construction phase, upgrade of the linac with 600-MeV Super-Conducting Linac (SCL) for Accelerator-Driven nuclear waste transmutation System (ADS) and upgrade of MR energy from 30 to 50 GeV are planned.