From the Accelerator Directorate:
The LCLS Is Back!
Dave Schultz (left) and Bob Hettel. (Photos by Brad Plummer.)
by Dave Schultz and Bob Hettel
The Linac Coherent Light Source has
turned back on after a very successful downtime that began before the Christmas break. Several major projects involving groups from across the lab were completed in advance of the turn-on, including:
- K-10 substation replacement: This project, which started preparations before the downtime, replaced an aging electrical substation as a part of a continuing program to renew the SLAC Accelerator and to facilitate LCLS operation. A significant fraction of this project was done during the Christmas break when power could be shut off in the Linac to allow this work to proceed safely. Power was restored after the New Year began, and the project was
completed successfully and on schedule.
- Sector 20 wall construction: This new wall was constructed in order to separate the LCLS from the front two-thirds of the Linac, enabling LCLS to operate without interruption from upstream tunnel access.
Read more...
LCLS Beam Reaches Far Hall
Construction Project Ready for Closeout Review
The LCLS X-ray beam (white spot on blue circle,
left) hit a target at the entry point to the Far Experimental Hall for the first time yesterday. (Photo by Brad Plummer.)
by Kelen Tuttle
Yesterday, X-ray pulses for the first time traveled through the Linac Coherent Light Source X-ray Transport Tunnel and
to the Far Experimental Hall—an achievement that marks the final milestone needed for the Department of Energy to review
and approve the LCLS construction project as successfully completed.
"This is something I've been visualizing for a long time, and to be honest it doesn't feel completely real," said John Galayda, who heads the LCLS construction project. "Now that this has finally happened—wow.
I owe all the people who made this happen, people at SLAC and also at Argonne and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories, thanks for bringing LCLS to life—thanks for all your great work, done creatively, precisely and safely."
Members of the LCLS construction project team. (Photo by Brad Plummer.)
The trip from the X-ray Transport Tunnel to the Far Experimental Hall is the final leg for X-rays journeying
from the LCLS Undulator Hall to the experimental stations downstream. The whole process begins about two-thirds of the way down the SLAC linear accelerator, where an
electron gun initiates a pulse of electrons. These electrons travel down the linac, gathering speed and
energy, before coasting through the Beam Transport Hall and into the Undulator Hall. There they work their way through a 133-meter stretch of alternating magnets that force the electrons to slalom back and forth, causing them to emit X-rays. From there, what has by now become the world’s brightest X-ray laser pulses either enter experimental areas in the Near Experimental Hall or, as of yesterday, travel past the NEH, through the X-ray Transport Hall and
to the Far Experimental Hall, which will soon house the final three of six LCLS instruments.
Special Colloquium Today:
Back to Hadrons
Today at 4:15 p.m. in Panofsky Auditorium, CERN Director of Accelerators and Technology Stephen Myers will present a special colloquium, "Back to Hadrons (from the ISR to LEP to the LHC)." This
talk, originally scheduled for Wednesday, was rescheduled due to flight delays
in Europe.
Meyers will briefly describe CERN's colliders starting with the Intersecting Storage Rings, going through the Large Electron Positron collider, and finishing with the Large Hadron
Collider. The common threads will be discussed in terms of people and
techniques. For the major part of the talk, Meyer said he will give more details
on the recent work on the LHC, in particular, an account of the work carried out
to repair the LHC following the accident of September 2008. He will also
describe the measures undertaken to ensure that such an event will not reoccur,
including the improvements in the magnet protection system and the reduction of
the resulting collateral damage. He will also provide the first results of beam
operation in the collider as well as the plans for the near future. Read more...
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