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My web log of NBI2003
Table of Contents:
Monday morning was spent in talks, and after lunch we were taken on a tour of the beam line at KEK to the target station where the K2K horns are. This beam creates the neutrinos that go to the Super Kamiokande detector 250 km away.
Our hosts were running the K2K horns at 150 kiloamps as a demonstration for us. Of course, there was no beam in the beam-line as that would have been fatal to us. Still, I can't describe the feeling, as a fellow horn builder, of being in the target station and hearing those giant horns (compared to MiniBooNE) running. When I hear that loud booming, it's like music to my ears. There is a somewhat different feeling when you have to run across the beamline immediately downstream of the horns (while they are running), to avoid excessive exposure to the residual radioactivity in the hall. I feel greatly honored and privileged to have seen what very few people in the world ever get to see in person.
Monday night, Yamanoi and Ichikawa very graciously invited Gordon and I to dinner at a fabulous restaurant that specialized in unagi (eel). I am a big fan of unagi, and if you have never tried it, you don't know what you are missing. I highly recommend it's flavor and delicate texture. Thank you again, my friends Yamanoi and Ichikawa. I won't forget that night.
Please click on the thumbnails to get an expanded image.
Two views of a remote magnet lifting fixture that will allow magnets in the J-PARC beam line to be replaced without people entering the high radiation area. The magnet support will be accurate enough with self-aligning features that simply lowering a new magnet in place will put it in the correct location.
Hirose and Tanaka-san demonstrate the custom couplings that allow the cooling water to be quickly attached or detached from the J-PARC magnets.
We saw the largest spiders I have ever seen outside of a zoo all around the city of Tsukuba. This one stretched the whole length of my hand, a part of me that I was not going to put too close to it.
These two views are as we walked down the descending beam line toward the target station. I was particularly interested in the building crane and the long racks on the crane rails that allow it to climb up the incline of the tunnel.
This picture shows the kind of metal damage and discoloration that beam does to a vacuum window. This foil closes the beam pipe (so that the beam pipe can have vacuum inside) and allows the beam to pass through into the air of the tunnel. This beam window was the end of the vacuum pipe for beam going to a kaon experiment.
The picture on the left shows K2K horn 1s stored in the tunnel. They are radioactive, but I am not sure if they are spares or used horns that have been removed from the beam. The other two pictures show a spare/used second horn stored in the same area. I know it's hard to get a sense of scale from these pictures, but the top of horn 2 was over my head by at least a foot.
In the left picture, we have reached the target station and can just see the beam exiting the quad and entering the enclosed room of the horns. The middle picture was taken after I had crossed in front of the horns at the downstream end of the enclosure, and I took Stephane Rangod from CERN crossing the beam line. The picture on the right was taken by walking back upstream on the beam left side of the enclosure and taking it from the upstream end of the enclosure. (Basically, we walked all the way around the horn enclosure. ) I left the flash off and did a little photo enhancement, and you can just see the upstream end of horn 1 inside the enclosure through the blackened plastic.
This picture shows the stripline that powers horn 2 going from the transformer through the penetration in the wall. The booming sound of the horns was louder near these penetrations.
We wore booties inside the beam line to prevent picking up any contamination on our shoes.
The picture on the left shows Gordon, Yamanoi and Ichikawa at our table. The unagi restaurant was beautifully decorated with tatami mats and displays of ancient Japanese coins. I could not have been happier that night! The next NBI is going to be at Fermilab in 2005 and we have struggled to think of how we can come close to matching around Chicago the wonderful sights and tastes we experienced in Japan. As Jim Hylen said, the bar has definitely been raised for the next NBI.
After dinner, we stopped at a convenience store for a little ice cream and some souvenirs for my children. I took this picture while I was looking to see what the Japanese equivalent of the potato chip rack would look like. I'm not sure if these bags are the equivalent of potato chips, but I thought the packages were very colorful and interesting to look at. (That's the point of good packaging, right?)
Just to let you know, Ichikawa and Yamanoi, my kids loved the chocolate eggs with the detailed miniature animals inside them, the Gundam robot miniatures, and the Hamtaro finger puppet. Thank you again for helping me find things that are uniquely Japanese and possible to carry home in my luggage.
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