First observation of O

Kondo, Yosuke*; Achouri, N. L.*; Al Falou, H.*; Atar, L.*; Aumann, T.*; Baba, Hidetada*; Boretzky, K.*; Caesar, C.*; Calvet, D.*; Chae, H.*; et al.

Nature, 620(7976), p.965 - 970, 2023/08

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06352-6

no abstracts in English

Benchmark simulation code for the thermal-hydraulics design tool of the accelerator-driven system; Validation and benchmark simulation of flow behavior around the beam window

Yamashita, Susumu; Kondo, Nao; Sugawara, Takanori; Monji, Hideaki*; Yoshida, Hiroyuki

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 22 Pages, 2023/00

https://doi.org/10.1080/00223131.2023.2268676

To confirm the validity of the thermal-hydraulics design tool based on the Ansys Fluent, we used a detailed computational fluid dynamics code named JAEA Utility Program for Interdisciplinary Thermal-hydraulics Engineering and Research (JUPITER) for the thermal-hydraulics around the beam window (BW) of the Accelerator-Driven System (ADS). The Fluent uses the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) model and can quickly calculate the turbulent flow around the BW as a BW design tool. At first, we compared the results of JUPITER with the experimental results using a mock-up BW system in water to confirm the validity of JUPITER. As a result, we confirmed that numerical results are in good agreement with the experimental results. Thus, we showed that JUPITER could be used as a benchmark code. We also performed a benchmark simulation for the Fluent calculation using validated JUPITER to show the applicability of JUPITER as an alternative of experiments. As a result, the mean values around the BW agreed with each other, e.g., the mean velocity profile for stream and horizontal directions. Therefore, we confirmed that JUPITER showed a good performance in validating the thermal-hydraulics design tool as a fluid dynamics solver. Moreover, Fluent has enough accuracy as a thermal-hydraulics design tool for the ADS.

Development of negative muonium ion source for muon acceleration

Kitamura, Ryo; Bae, S.*; Choi, S.*; Fukao, Yoshinori*; Iinuma, Hiromi*; Ishida, Katsuhiko*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Kim, B.*; Kondo, Yasuhiro; Mibe, Tsutomu*; et al.

Physical Review Accelerators and Beams (Internet), 24(3), p.033403_1 - 033403_9, 2021/03

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevAccelBeams.24.033403

A negative muonium ion (Mu) source using an aluminum foil target was developed as a low-energy muon source. An experiment to produce Mu ions was conducted to evaluate the performance of the Mu ion source. The measured event rate of Mu ions was Mu/s when the event rate of the incident muon beam was /s. The formation probability, defined as the ratio of the Mu ions to the incident muons on the Al target, was . This Mu ion source boosted the development of the muon accelerator, and the practicality of this low-energy muon source obtained using a relatively simple apparatus was demonstrated.

A Model intercomparison of atmospheric Cs concentrations from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, phase III; Simulation with an identical source term and meteorological field at 1-km resolution

Sato, Yosuke*; Sekiyama, Tsuyoshi*; Fang, S.*; Kajino, Mizuo*; Qurel, A.*; Qulo, D.*; Kondo, Hiroaki*; Terada, Hiroaki; Kadowaki, Masanao; Takigawa, Masayuki*; et al.

Atmospheric Environment; X (Internet), 7, p.100086_1 - 100086_12, 2020/10

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aeaoa.2020.100086

The third model intercomparison project for investigating the atmospheric behavior of Cs emitted during the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident (FDNPP-MIP) was conducted. A finer horizontal grid spacing (1 km) was used than in the previous FDNPP-MIP. Nine of the models used in the previous FDNPP-MIP were also used, and all models used identical source terms and meteorological fields. Our analyses indicated that most of the observed high atmospheric Cs concentrations were well simulated, and the good performance of some models improved the performance of the multi-model ensemble. The analyses also confirmed that the use of a finer grid resolution resulted in the meteorological field near FDNPP being better reproduced. The good representation of the wind field resulted in the reasonable simulation of the narrow distribution of high deposition amount to the northwest of FDNPP and the reduction of the overestimation over the area to the south of FDNPP. In contrast, the performance of the models in simulating plumes observed over the Nakadori area, the northern part of Gunma, and the Tokyo metropolitan area was slightly worse.

Development of a bunch-width monitor for low-intensity muon beam below a few MeV

Sue, Yuki*; Yotsuzuka, Mai*; Futatsukawa, Kenta*; Hasegawa, Kazuo; Iijima, Toru*; Iinuma, Hiromi*; Inami, Kenji*; Ishida, Katsuhiko*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Kitamura, Ryo; et al.

Physical Review Accelerators and Beams (Internet), 23(2), p.022804_1 - 022804_7, 2020/02

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevAccelBeams.23.022804

A destructive monitor to measure the longitudinal bunch width of a low-energy and low-intensity muon beam was developed. This bunch-width monitor (BWM) employed microchannel plates to detect a single muon with high time resolution. In addition, constant-fraction discriminators were adopted to suppress the time-walk effect. The time resolution was measured to be 65 ps in rms using a picosecond-pulsed laser. This resolution satisfied the requirements of the muon linac of the J-PARC E34 experiment. We measured the bunch width of negative-muonium ions accelerated with a radio-frequency quadrupole using the BWM. The bunch width was successfully measured to be 54 11 ns, which is consistent with the simulation.

Negative muonium ion production with a C12A7 electride film

Otani, Masashi*; Fukao, Yoshinori*; Futatsukawa, Kenta*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Matoba, Shiro*; Mibe, Tsutomu*; Miyake, Yasuhiro*; Shimomura, Koichiro*; Yamazaki, Takayuki*; Hasegawa, Kazuo; et al.

Journal of Physics; Conference Series, 1350, p.012067_1 - 012067_6, 2019/12

https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1350/1/012067

Negative muonium atom (ee, Mu) has unique features stimulating potential interesting for several scientific fields. Since its discovery in late 1980's in vacuum, it has been discussed that the production efficiency would be improved using a low-work function material. C12A7 was a well-known insulator as a constituent of alumina cement, but was recently confirmed to exhibit electric conductivity by electron doping. The C12A7 electride has relatively low-work function (2.9 eV). In this paper, the negative muonium production measurement with several materials including a C12A7 electride film will be presented. Measured production rate of the Mu were 10/s for all the Al, electride, and SUS target. Significant enhancement on electride target was not observed, thus it is presumed that the surface condition should be more carefully treated. There was no material dependence of the Mu averaged energy: it was 0.20.1keV.

Stability of ' precipitates in nickel based oxide dispersion-strengthened superalloys under high-temperature and heavy irradiation conditions

Konno, Azusa; Ono, Naoko*; Ukai, Shigeharu*; Kondo, Sosuke*; Hashitomi, Okinobu*; Kimura, Akihiko*

Materials Transactions, 60(11), p.2260 - 2266, 2019/11

https://doi.org/10.2320/matertrans.M2019050

A stability of cuboidal ' phase under heavy irradiation was studied for newly developed Ni-based Oxide Dispersion Strengthened (ODS) superalloy as a candidate for the core structural materials in VHTR or GFR. The ion irradiation was applied at 873K, 1073K, 1273K and the dose was 100 dpa. The ' phase remained the cuboidal shape at 873K but got out of the shape at 1073K after irradiation. Those growths can be explained by the Nelson-Hudson-Mazey (NHM) model. For the result of 1273K irradiation, however, huge ' phase appeared in the whole irradiated area at the post irradiation-observation. This behavior is interpreted in terms of disordering of the ordered ' phase due to cascade collision, and thus increasing Gibbs free energy of the disordered phase induces a change of the element distribution inside the irradiated area. The ordered ' phase was reproduced from the disordered state at the cooling after ion irradiation.

Report of summer holiday practical training 2018; Feasibility study on nuclear battery using HTTR core; Feasibility study for nuclear design

Ishitsuka, Etsuo; Matsunaka, Kazuaki*; Ishida, Hiroki*; Ho, H. Q.; Ishii, Toshiaki; Hamamoto, Shimpei; Takamatsu, Kuniyoshi; Kenzhina, I.*; Chikhray, Y.*; Kondo, Atsushi*; et al.

JAEA-Technology 2019-008, 12 Pages, 2019/07

JAEA-Technology-2019-008.pdf:2.37MB

As a summer holiday practical training 2018, the feasibility study for nuclear design of a nuclear battery using HTTR core was carried out. As a result, it is become clear that the continuous operations for about 30 years at 2 MW, about 25 years at 3 MW, about 18 years at 4 MW, about 15 years at 5 MW are possible. As an image of thermal design, the image of the nuclear battery consisting a cooling system with natural convection and a power generation system with no moving equipment is proposed. Further feasibility study to confirm the feasibility of nuclear battery will be carried out in training of next fiscal year.

Bunch size measurement with high time resolution for RF accelerated muon beam

Sue, Yuki*; Iijima, Toru*; Inami, Kenji*; Yotsuzuka, Mai*; Iinuma, Hiromi*; Nakazawa, Yuga*; Otani, Masashi*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Shimomura, Koichiro*; Futatsukawa, Kenta*; et al.

Proceedings of 16th Annual Meeting of Particle Accelerator Society of Japan (Internet), p.55 - 60, 2019/07

https://www.pasj.jp/web_publish/pasj2019/proceedings/PDF/WEOI/WEOI05.pdf

The result of bunch size measurement of muon accelerated by RFQ up to 89 keV is presented in this paper. A four-stage muon linac for precise measurement of muon property is under construction in the J-PARC. The demonstration of the first muon RF acceleration with an RFQ linac was conducted and the transverse profile of the accelerated muons was measured in 2017. As one of the remaining issues for the beam diagnostic system, the longitudinal beam profile after the RFQ should be measured to match the profile to the designed acceptance of the subsequent accelerator. For this purpose, the new longitudinal beam monitor using the microchannel plate is under development. The time resolution of the monitor aims to be around 30 to 40 ps corresponding to 1% of a period of an operating frequency of the accelerator, which is 324 MHz. On November 2018, the bunch size of accelerated negative muonium ion of 89 keV with the RFQ was measured using this monitor at the J-PARC MLF. The measured bunch width is ns, which is consistent with the simulation.

Development of RF input coupler for Inter-digital H-mode drift-tube linac prototype with alternative phase focusing in muon linac

Nakazawa, Yuga*; Iinuma, Hiromi*; Iwashita, Yoshihisa*; Iwata, Yoshiyuki*; Otani, Masashi*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Kitamura, Ryo; Kondo, Yasuhiro; Saito, Naohito; Sue, Yuki*; et al.

Proceedings of 16th Annual Meeting of Particle Accelerator Society of Japan (Internet), p.404 - 407, 2019/07

https://www.pasj.jp/web_publish/pasj2019/proceedings/PDF/WEPI/WEPI001.pdf

An inter-digital H-mode drift-tube linac (IH-DTL) is developed in a muon linac at the J-PARC E34 experiment. IH-DTL will accelerate muons from 0.34 MeV to 4.5 MeV at a drive frequency of 324 MHz. Since IH-DTL adopts an APF method, with which the beam is focused in the transverse direction using the rf field only, the proper beam matching of the phase-space distribution is required before the injection into the IH-DTL. Thus, an IH-DTL prototype was fabricated to evaluate the performance of the cavity and beam transmission. As a preparation of the high-power test, tuners and coupler are designed and fabricated. In the low power measurement, we decided the loop structure with witch the VSWR = 1.01 and field distortion of within 7%. In this paper, the development of the tuner and the coupler and the result of the low-power measurement will be presented.