Robert McGreevy (chair), Christiane Alba-Simionesco, Bertrand Blau, MikeDayton, Yoshiaki Kiyanagi, Yoshie Otake, Christian Ruegg, Andreas Schreyer,
Jamie Schulz, Masaaki Sugiyama

Summary report
Summary Report

Jamie Schulz (Chair), Yoshie Otake, Philip King, Bertrand Blau, MichaelDayton, Günter Muhrer, Christiane Alba-Simionesco, Jonathan Taylor,Sungil Park, Taka-hisa Arima, Ken Andersen, Toyohiko Kinoshita

Charge to NAC 2022•

Neutron Target development & maintenance– Is the aging countermeasures and the upgrading plan appropriate?
– Are efforts to extend the service life appropriate?

•Neutron Instruments & Outcomes– Do neutron instruments remain at the forefront of the world?
– Are aging countermeasures and upgrading plans appropriate?

•Sample environments, detectors and optical devices– Does it meet the user's requirements?
– Are upgrading plans appropriate?

•Scientific productivity / User Program– Analysis of publication status appropriate?
– Is the promotion of industrial use, mainly through joint research andconsortia, appropriate?

•Remote Experiment– Evaluate the efforts to realize remote experiment at MLF.
– Is the promotion of industrial use, mainly through joint research andconsortia, appropriate?

Table of Contents
Introductory Remarks

3NAC-2022 Committee4

NAC-2022 Agenda

4General Comments

5

Neutron Target Development & Maintenance5

Performance of Existing Suite of Neutron Instruments

6

Neutron Instrument Upgrade Plans

6

Sample Environments

7

Detectors and Optical Devices

7

User Program (Demand & Usage)

8

Scientific Productivity (Publications)8

Industrial Use

9Computing & Remote Experiment9

Introductory Remarks
The Neutron Advisory Committee (NAC) thanks the participants for the detailed
presentations and their helpful and open responses to the discussions and questions
The NAC values the provision of the charge, presentations and video recordings prior to thefirst meeting and request in future (if required) that this material is provided in advance ofthe first meeting
The format of the meeting worked well, with high-level summary presentations tosupplement the detailed presentations provided before the meeting
The NAC welcomes Takashi Kobayashi as the new Director of J-PARC
The chair thanks the NAC for their enthusiastic participation

NAC-2022 Committee

Jamie Schulz - ANSTO (Chair)
Yoshie Otake - RIKENPhilip King - ISIS
Bertrand Blau - PSI
Michael Dayton - ORNL
Günter Muhrer - ESS
Christiane Alba-Simionesco - LLB (CEA/CNRS)
Jonathan Taylor - ESS
Sungil Park - KAERITaka-hisa Arima - University of Tokyo
Ken Andersen - ORNL
Toyohiko Kinoshita - SPring-8

NAC-2022 Agenda

General Comments
The MLF appears to be operating more as a single organisation. Staff & management are tobe commended for working towards this unified MLF objective
The MLF continues to prioritise stable operations which are critical for the user program
whilst increasing power in a systematic stepwise approach which has resulted in stable
operations for the user community.
The recent achievement of 700kW with an availability of >90% is commended.
The NAC is pleased to note that the J-PARC budget has been sustained in JFY2022 aspredictable sustained funding for international research infrastructure is critical for success
Maintaining user operations during COVID-19 must be commended and the progress thathas been made on implementing remote access will benefit all users.

Neutron Target Development &Maintenance
The NAC commends J-PARC and the MLF on their recent demonstration of stable beam
operation at 700kW with >90% availability.
The current activities undertaken to evaluate MLF component operational parametersagainst initial design requirements enables strategies and options for feasible power
upgrades through establishment of existing margins and identification of potential upgrade
pathways.
As an appropriate aging countermeasure, MLF has manufactured a spare ModeratorReflector Assembly which is scheduled to be installed next year. The NAC strongly supports
the efforts of the assembly testing which was carried out during the 2021 summer outage
period. It revealed some unforeseen difficulties which can be settled before the actual
replacement operation.
The NAC would like to emphasize the potential for undesirable interferences to nominal
MLF operations as a result of the “disassemblable target” hot cell activities. Contingencies
should be identified and evaluated to ensure primary hot cell operations can be maintained.

The current plan and proposed design changes to the target to improve bubble density at
the target nose and planned indentation testing to assess material strength show promise
to enable extension of target lifetimes from one to two years. Additionally, the operational
impacts driven by limited spent target storage capacity are being actively addressed thoughtarget life extension and target volume reduction.
Besides reducing target storage volume, increasing target operation to two years has
additional benefits in enabling an increase in neutron production time.
Continuous efforts should be paid to find a satisfactory explanation for the strongly varying
amount of tritium release during target exchange. Understanding the mechanisms of tritium
production will be critical in light of the increase in target lifetimes.

Performance of Existing Suite of NeutronInstruments
Science examples presented to the NAC demonstrate that the MLF neutron instruments areleading to high quality scientific outputs. Industry case studies presented are leading to
impactful real-world outcomes.
To ensure the performance and the operation of the instruments, MLF should continue toincrease the number of permanent staff (technical and scientific) on site.
Opportunity exists to clearly articulate MLF’s role in supporting Japanese scientific &research priorities and grand challenges.
Benchmarking with JRR3 should be undertaken to clearly articulate which is the mostappropriate instrument for particular scientific questions/problems.

Neutron Instrument Upgrade Plans
The NAC was pleased to see that the instrument upgrade plans demonstrate a healthy andvaried level of activity needed to keep the instrument suite up to date.
A wide variety of instrument upgrade plans were shown, covering roughly ⅓ of the
instrument suite. Efforts to remedy performance deterioration (DNA and 3He detectors) areimportant.
Prioritising completion of detector systems to a good level across the suite could beconsidered. For example two (Polano & HRC) instruments have only ~50% installedcoverage.
It is very positive to hear that a 2030 roadmap for neutron developments for MLF is being
drawn up. It is suggested that this is expanded to include JRR-3, to show a plan for
instrument developments. The NAC feels this is a very important step, and the NAC wouldwelcome updates at future meetings.

The roadmap would benefit from the strategic involvement of other neutron facilities inJapan and the user community.

Sample Environments
The NAC is pleased to observe that the number of sample environment staff has increased;
new staff are supporting user demands (in particular in the field of soft matter and biology).
We note that experiments are needing to be limited for some scientific capabilities becauseof over-demand on equipment. It is very healthy to see the equipment being used to thisextent - it shows it is very beneficial to user science - but plans to mitigate this situation
would be good to see.
In general, SE development has become an extremely important part of a neutron facility’sservice provision. Experiments are becoming increasingly complex, requiring in-situ and inoperando measurements on realistic systems.
The NAC is pleased to see that a number of developments of common SE equipment havebeen undertaken which allow new capabilities across several beamlines, e.g. P-E pressure
cell and furnaces.
The MLF should consider if there are any particular areas of sample environment
capability/expertise in which J-PARC would like to excel. E.g. in high-field provision
The MLF should develop a 5-10 year roadmap for future developments. Inputs to this plan
could include user requests, aging existing equipment, trends at other facilities etc. Theseplans may be in different areas, e.g. one for high fields, one for ULT, one for pressure, etc.
It is better to realize common sample environments (conditions and sample holders)
between the user’s lab and MLF. Sample transfer and exchange system should bedeveloped.

Detectors and Optical Devices
The MLF continues to be an innovative of world-leading neutron scattering devices &components. This includes detectors, polarising supermirrors and 3He spin filters.
The recent focussing supermirror development activity has achieved a world leading m=6.2
is commendable. An increase in production capacity would help to implement thisdevelopment on instruments
The work of neutron optical elements in particular should be led by developers who see thepotential to go beyond the conventional boundaries, and the promotion of such efforts will
enable J-PARC to take a leap forward as a facility that produces cutting-edge science.
Good progress is being made with deploying polarized 3He for in-beam polarizers.
A combined strategy for developing and implementing supermirror and 3He polarizers is
recommended to be included in the MLF2030 vision.

Overall good progress is seen for the detector programme, especially development ofupdated read out for MWPC providing high rate capability. MLF collaborates on key
technologies with other neutron facilities. The degradation that has been observed in 3He
PSDs installed in high flux instruments is under investigation, similar degradation is seen atILL, there is collaboration between the two facilities

User Program (Demand & Usage)
MLF operates 4 user access mechanisms which are consistent with other international facilities:●●●●

General Use Proposals (Short-term and One-year)
General Use Proposals (Long-term up to 3 years)
Fast Track (mail-in) Proposals
Urgent Access Proposals

Demand continues to remain healthy for MLF instruments with an average proposals success rate of
41% (2021B round) (170/410 proposals assuming success rate is similar for muons).
International demand continues to increase as J-PARC’s international reputation continues to grow.
Domestic demand by Japanese organisations appears to be decreasing. This is likely due to COVID19. However, this should be closely monitored into the future in the case there is an underlying
trend.
MLF’s intent to increase domestic collaboration is supported by the NAC. It is recommended that astrategy with corresponding initiatives and metrics is developed. This strategy should also be alignedwith Japan’s scientific & research priorities and grand challenges whilst also including the uniquestrengths of neutron scattering (magnetism etc).
Although the beamtime is limited the NAC recommends consideration of a MLF PhD program for thedevelopment and engagement of students (by fund or beamtime) similar to programs employed atother international neutron scattering facilities.

Scientific Productivity (Publications)
The current MLF publishing rate of approved proposals is 34% which is less than other internationalfacilities. A target of 50% is consistent with experience at other international facilities. However thistarget needs to be balanced with the high industry utilisation (24%) which is likely to produce lesstraditional publication outputs.
The MLF must continue to seek to understand why the publishing rate is lower than expected. This
includes liaising with users that have not published results from experiments, analysing the data andundertaking actions to increase the publication rate, as well as ensuring that instrument scientists
have enough time to work with users on data analysis.
It would be valuable to undertake a benchmarking exercise against comparable instruments at otherfacilities to observe international trends and further understand the MLF publication rates at theinstrument level.

Policies and systems should be considered to assist in tracking outcomes of individual experiments
such as minting DOI’s for experiments to be referenced in papers (as done at the ILL and ISIS). This
would assist in answering the question of whether too many experiments are not being published orwhether several experiments are needed for each publication.

Industrial Use
The industry program at MLF continues to be commendable in comparison to other international
facilities with the average ratio of industrial use of 24%. However, there is a room for growthconsidering that there are not many paying industry users and that most of the industrial use isconcentrated on a few beamlines.
NAC supports joint research with industry and/or forming consortia to attract more users fromindustry. NAC recommends training students in the process so that they can play important roles inleading future innovations using neutrons.
The significant contribution that Ibaraki Beamline has made to industrial applications and theimportance of educational activities for industry are clear, and the ripple effect on other beamlines
is also evident in the results.
It would be more efficient not only for industrial use but also for human resource development if
MLF aim to establish a framework for information exchange and communication among beamline
scientists beyond the differences in organizations and facilities (MLF, JRR3, CANS’ near J-PARC), forexample, such as a further expansion of J-JOIN.
It is hoped that education and lectures on the use of neutrons in industry will be further opened up
to the general public of students and companies. The activities of J-JOIN can be used for thispurpose.
For the industry use, a J-PARC maintenance period of a few months, which is necessary for a stable
operation, may cause some disadvantage. NAC recommends cooperating/partnering with JRR-3 toensure consistent services to industry.

Computing & Remote Experiment
The MLF has implemented a remote user programme that mirrors similar systems seen at otherneutron facilities.
The NAC recommends that MLF continues to clearly define different types of ‘remote’ access:●●●Mail-in Fast Track: users mail samples and instrument scientists undertake short welldefined measurements for users, e.g. powder diffraction in standard sample environment
Remote access: users mail samples, instrument scientists mount/load samples and users
may be able to view the experiment and data
Remote control: users mail samples, instrument scientists mount/load samples and users
are able to view the experiment and data and remotely control some aspects of theexperiment.

Fast track user access is in place for 3 (key) instruments in the MLF user programme.

Remote access has been is heavily used across the instrument suite during the COVID-19 pandemic
with almost 50% of experiment in a recent period utilising that mode.
MLF have developed and implemented a useful remote control capability, that allows remote users
to take control of the instrument including instrument systems and sample environment. A specificfunding stream has been utilised to implement this capability and included in that the design andmanufacture of automated sample changers.
Staffing
The current level of remote use likely increases the staff workload to that end a move to allow full(or partial) remote control of instruments is essential.
Staffing plan to support remote experiments should be developed.
The move towards remote control of instruments and more generally increased use of digitalsolutions places increased load on staff in the IT area care must be taken to ensure that workloads
are not too high, and that there are considerations for support available if systems fail during
operation. Sufficient budget should be available to maintain the systems if this mode of use
becomes the new normal.
Any future plan for remote experiments should make it clear if the proposed changes are to improvethe efficiency of the instrument scientists by allowing them to operate the instruments remotely(e.g. from home), or if the effort is to support services for remote users, which will not physically beon site for the experiment.
When the remote experiments are performed normally, the task of staff members become hard.
MLF and users community have to think about how to share the work and to support staff.
Policy & Guidelines
The implementation is considered and addresses essential areas such as information security.
So far the system has been deployed and tested on one MLF instrument. Deployment across othercandidate instruments will follow. Care should be taken to ensure that the underlying infrastructure(network) has the correct capacity to handle this deployment. MLF could also consider specifictrainings to be implemented to allow remote use to be successful.
Consider including remote users in the tracked number of unique users (academic or industrial;japanese or foreigners).
Guidelines should be developed which experiments can be done remotely, which will require onsite
presents, and these guidelines should be communicated to the users.
It will decrease the chance to educate and train young scientists and students. For future, theeducational program system should be considered.
Training plan for remote users should be developed including virtual experiments on theinstruments on site.
Computing general comments
MLF has developed a very comprehensive suite of controls and acquisition software that matches
the instrument needs.

The facility users have access to remote infrastructure to perform data analysis. MLF could consider
how data management plans could be used to help users identify what their data treatment needs
are.