We review a novel free space optical (FSO) system that represents a significant breakthrough in the area of FSO communications. The system encompasses a pair of novel terminals: these allow direct ...and transparent optical connection to common single mode fibers and include a dedicated electronic control unit that effectively tracks the signal beam wandering due to atmospheric turbulence and mechanical vibrations. Further improvement in the signal power stabilization is achieved by means of saturated EDFAs. These solutions allow to realize a new FSO system, which is tested in a double-pass FSO link between two buildings in Pisa, Italy. When the terminals are fed by common WDM signals they allow enough power budget and margins to support a record high capacity transmission (32times40 Gbit/s), with a enormous improvement of stability (six hours with no error burst). During day-long transmission, the system behavior has been deeply characterized to correlate any increase of bit error ratio (BER) to the FSO control parameters.
Along the beam lines of the SuperKEKB main rings, 218 conventional sextupole magnets are installed, and they are used for tuning the chromaticity of the accelerator rings. Especially, 16 sextupole ...magnets in the beam straight lines in the Tsukuba area are quite essential for the Crab Waist beam colliding. To make the beam tuning process finer, we are studying the superconducting sextupole magnet system with three types of the corrector magnets. From the operation temperature of the system, A15 compound superconductor is chosen as the cable material, and the development of the react and wind coil production has been tried with the Nb 3 Al cable. The Nb 3 Al super fine strand superconducting cable for the corrector magnets was manufactured, and its superconducting characteristics are being studied. In this paper, as the first test result of the development, the critical current characteristics of the straight cable as variables of temperature and magnetic field are reported. As the results, the critical current of the Nb 3 Al cable was higher than the design values for the corrector magnets, and this level of cable performance also indicates the potential for the cable being used for the main sextupole magnet.
In the main linac of the International Linear Collider (ILC), superconducting magnets for beam focusing and steering will be located periodically in superconducting RF (SRF) cavity string for beam ...acceleration in common cryomodules. A concept of conduction cooling of the combined-functioned, splittable superconducting magnets has been proposed and investigated to adapt much different features and to meet different requirements for the superconducting magnet and SRF cavity in fabrication, assembly, and operation. It is required to integrate the superconducting magnet after the SRF cavity string assembly which completed under an ultra-clean environment. The magnet must be conductively cooled down through thermal links to a liquid helium supply pipe. According to this concept, a model magnet development was carried out in cooperation with Fermilab and KEK, and has been demonstrated in KEK superconducting RF test facility (STF). In addition, an important issue has been recently identified. High gradient SRF cavities naturally emit field emission electron flux from the inner surface, so-called dark current. It may pass through the subsequent SRF cavity string and penetrate into the superconducting magnets placed downstream. It may heat up the superconducting coils, and may cause a quench. Therefore, further study on reliable conduction cooling and to secure the superconducting magnet operation with a keeping sufficient safety margin is quite essential. In this paper, we report the installation, the improvement achieved in STF, and the R&D progress in the study on the conduction cooling of the superconducting magnet for the ILC main linac.
The International Linear Collider (ILC) main linac comprises a series of 12 m-long cryomodules. The cryomodule contains eight 9-cell superconducting (SC) RF (SRF) cavities and an SC quadrupole magnet ...combined with dipole correctors to focus and steer electron and positron beams. The magnets are installed between the SRF cavity string and at the longitudinal center of a common cryomodule/cryostat. These magnets are conductively cooled by pure aluminum channels thermally connected to a 2 K two-phase helium pipe for cooling the SRF cavities. A recent study shows that field-emitted electrons, so-called "dark current" initiated in the SRF cavities, are transmitted through the SRF cavity string and reach the SC magnet. The energy is inevitably absorbed in the SC coil due to the magnetic field, resulting in risks of a quench caused by the coil heating. We are investigating alternate magnet designs by using Nb <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">_{3}</tex-math></inline-formula> Sn or <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">\text{MgB}_{2}</tex-math></inline-formula> SC and by adding the dark current absorber surrounding the beam-pipe to realize sustainable magnet operation under the dark current heating. We report the design study of the magnet system and interfaces to the cryomodule accommodating it with the SRF cavities.
Matsunaga T, Mutai H, Kunishima S, Namba K, Morimoto N, Shinjo Y, Arimoto Y, Kataoka Y, Shintani T, Morita N, Sugiuchi T, Masuda S, Nakano A, Taiji H, Kaga K. A prevalent founder mutation and ...genotype–phenotype correlations of OTOF in Japanese patients with auditory neuropathy.
Auditory neuropathy is a hearing disorder characterized by normal outer hair cell function and abnormal neural conduction of the auditory pathway. Aetiology and clinical presentation of congenital or early‐onset auditory neuropathy are heterogeneous, and their correlations are not well understood. Genetic backgrounds and associated phenotypes of congenital or early‐onset auditory neuropathy were investigated by systematically screening a cohort of 23 patients from unrelated Japanese families. Of the 23 patients, 13 (56.5%) had biallelic mutations in OTOF, whereas little or no association was detected with GJB2 or PJVK, respectively. Nine different mutations of OTOF were detected, and seven of them were novel. p.R1939Q, which was previously reported in one family in the United States, was found in 13 of the 23 patients (56.5%), and a founder effect was determined for this mutation. p.R1939Q homozygotes and compound heterozygotes of p.R1939Q and truncating mutations or a putative splice site mutation presented with stable, and severe‐to‐profound hearing loss with a flat or gently sloping audiogram, whereas patients who had non‐truncating mutations except for p.R1939Q presented with moderate hearing loss with a steeply sloping, gently sloping or flat audiogram, or temperature‐sensitive auditory neuropathy. These results support the clinical significance of comprehensive mutation screening for auditory neuropathy.
The sweet potato whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), attacks a wide range of vegetables and ornamental plants in the tropics and subtropics. This study involved observations of adult ...whitefly courtship behaviours to determine the impact of acetylated glyceride treatment, which is currently being developed as a repellent for adults, on their progeny. In addition, the effect of acetylated glyceride treatment on acoustic‐based communication was evaluated, as this type of communication is known to play a pivotal role in the search for mating partners on host‐plant leaves in adult whiteflies. Adults were able to land on grape tomato leaves a few days after treatment, when the residual repellency had dissipated. Almost no male courtship behaviour in terms of searching for sexually mature females was observed throughout the observation period (60 min) under conditions in which adults of both sexes remained on a treated leaf or those in which an adult of either sex remained on a non‐treated leaf. By contrast, these behaviours accounted for 26.5% of the observation time under conditions in which both sexes remained on a non‐treated leaf. In cross‐tests performed for 4 days using one non‐mated female and two non‐mated males, the sex ratio (male/female) of the newly emerged adults on treated leaves (2.4) was 63.6% lower than that of the non‐treated controls (0.9). During courtship, acoustic signals produced by both sexes were exchanged rhythmically on non‐treated leaves, whereas the signals on treated leaves were irregular. The frequency of the vibratory sound produced by males was 66–81% lower on the treated leaves than on the non‐treated leaves. A large reduction in the acoustic signals produced by males on treated leaves caused a decrease in courting pair formation, leading to a significant reduction in the number of female progeny due to arrhenotokous parthenogenesis in virgin B. tabaci females.
We successfully transmitted a 1.28-Tb/s (32 times 40 Gb/s) wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) signal over a free-space optic (FSO) link, for the first time. We used a novel pair of FSO terminals, ...transparently connected to optical fibers, to transmit/receive the WDM channels over a double-pass FSO path between two buildings (2 times 210 m). Limited penalty on all 40-Gb/s channels and high stability was observed. Furthermore, long-term measurements of the system performance indicate a high improvement in reliability, which makes it a promising alternative for future deployment.
A new time projection chamber (TPC) was developed for neutron lifetime measurement using a pulsed cold neutron spallation source at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). Managing ...considerable background events from natural sources and the beam radioactivity is a challenging aspect of this measurement. To overcome this problem, the developed TPC has unprecedented features such as the use of polyether-ether-ketone plates in the support structure and internal surfaces covered with 6Li-enriched tiles to absorb outlier neutrons. In this paper, the design and performance of the new TPC are reported in detail.
The magnetic field of three scaled-radial-sector fixed field alternating gradient (FFAG)-magnets has been measured. The measurements results are compared to a three-dimensional field analysis using ...the TOSCA code; the generated magnetic field agrees satisfactorily with the TOSCA calculation in a range of 0.5%. Tracking simulation with the measured-field map has been performed and compared to that with the TOSCA field map.
The SuperKEKB project underway at KEK will increase the KEKB luminosity by 40 times using nanobeam-interaction-region focusing optics. To achieve this high luminosity, the chromaticity correction of ...the collision beams is crucial; thus, special sextupole magnets, which can simultaneously produce normal and skew sextupole fields, are required in the straight sections around the interaction point. As a candidate for the sextupole, a cryocooled high-temperature superconducting magnet was proposed; development has begun. Here, the basic magnet design and the results of a small coil test are presented. The test studied the quench characteristics of the REBCO-impregnated coil.