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Details of the background, that is, “unwanted signals accumulated by the data acquisition system of neutron instruments,” observed by the cold-neutron chopper spectrometer AMATERAS installed at the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility at J-PARC are reported. In the design phase of AMATERAS, we carefully considered the achievement of high signal-to-noise ratio, and possible countermeasures were implemented. Actually, recent scientific outputs from AMATERAS indicates that the spectrometer is one of excellent neutron instruments with low background. In spite of that, in nine years of AMATERAS operation, we have encountered unwanted signals due to various reasons, including γ rays emitted at materials on or near the beam line including the sample itself, scattered neutrons from the beam line devices, air scattering, electronic noise in data acquisition system, cosmic rays, T0 burst, and other unknown sources. In this report, we discuss the background observed by AMATERAS, especially in the conditions of without samples, comprehensively. The possible sources of these signals and the countermeasures considered against the above sources are discussed, which may be helpful to those who are engaged in other existing or planned neutron-scattering instruments.

We are developing a neutron polarizer with polarized $^3$He gas, referred to as a $^3$He spin filter, based on the Spin Exchange Optical Pumping (SEOP) for polarized neutron scattering experiments at Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) of Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). A $^3$He gas-filling station was constructed at J-PARC, and several $^3$He cells with long spin relaxation times have been fabricated using the gas-filling station. A laboratory has been prepared in the MLF beam hall for polarizing $^3$He cells, and compact pumping systems with laser powers of 30~W and 110~W, which can be installed onto a neutron beamline, have been developed. A $^3$He polarization of 85% was achieved at a neutron beamline by using the pumping system with the 110~W laser. Recently, the first user experiment utilizing the $^3$He spin filter was conducted, and there have been several more since then. The development and utilization of $^3$He spin filters at MLF of J-PARC are reported., Comment: 9 pages, 15 figures

Magnets are important for studying magnetism and are commonly used as sample environment devices of neutron scattering instruments. However, the use of magnets was prevented at the time-of-flight direct-geometry neutron spectrometer 4SEASONS in Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) at J-PARC, because the instrument is surrounded by iron components, and it is equipped with a piece of equipment operated with magnetic bearings. In the present work, we investigate the influence of stray magnetic fields from a superconducting magnet which is shared among neutron scattering instruments in MLF. Based on the investigation, we modified 4SEASONS such that it can be used with the magnet. Finally, we successfully performed the first inelastic neutron scattering experiments with applied magnetic fields using this sample environment.

Recently there has been an increasing need for inelastic neutron scattering experiments under some special environments such as magnetic fields, pressure and high temperatures. In order to obtain high quality data, the unnecessary scattering caused by sample environmental apparatus should be suppressed as much as possible. We have developed an oscillating radial collimator with a view to satisfying users' needs, which is specialized for the Fermi chopper spectrometer 4SEASONS at J-PARC.4SEASONS provides relatively high incident energies, and thus we chose hydrogen free metal sheets as the collimator blades. The control system of this oscillating radial collimator enables us to flexibly tune the oscillating pattern, such as the oscillating speed and oscillating angle. In this presentation, we report the performances and remaining issues of the newly developed oscillating radial collimator for 4SEASONS., 近年、磁場や圧力、高温といった特殊環境下での中性子非弾性散乱実験へのニーズが高まっており、質の高いデータを得るためには試料環境機器からの不要な散乱をできる限り低く抑える必要がある。そこで、我々はユーザーのニーズに応えるため、J-PARCのフェルミチョッパー分光器四季に特化した揺動型ラジアルコリメータを開発した。四季では比較的高い入射エネルギーを用いることから、コリメータのブレード素材に水素フリーの金属シートを採用した。このラジアルコリメータの制御システムでは、揺動スピードや揺動角等といった揺動パターンを柔軟に変更することが可能である。本稿では、新たに開発したラジアルコリメータの性能と残された課題について報告する。

The polychromatic incident energy measurements using chopper spectrometers at pulsed sources enables us to measure dynamics with different energy resolutions, i.e., different time-windows with a single-measurement. By increasing the possible time-window for a single-measurement, the efficiency and usefulness of such measurements is enhanced. This is achieved by allowing the crossing of trajectories of different Eis from different source pulses on the time-of-flight diagram (the interveined trajectory). We will present an actual case of the interveined trajectory on AMATERAS, a cold-neutron chopper spectrometer installed at J-PARC, together with our experience. Some of our attempts to formulate the conditions for performing polychromatic Ei measurements employing interveined trajectories are discussed. These which can be applied to existing spectrometers, and considered as design criteria for future chopper spectrometers. Further related plan of AMATERAS to improve measuring efficiency is also mentioned.

Neutron devices such as neutron detectors, optical devices including supermirror devices and 3He neutron spin filters, and choppers are successfully developed and installed at the Materials Life Science Facility (MLF) of the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC), Tokai, Japan. Four software components of MLF computational environment, instrument control, data acquisition, data analysis, and a database, have been developed and equipped at MLF. MLF also provides a wide variety of sample environment options including high and low temperatures, high magnetic fields, and high pressures. This paper describes the current status of neutron devices, computational and sample environments at MLF.

The efficiency of inelastic neutron scattering measurements using a chopper spectrometer can be markedly improved by utilizing multiple incident energies (Multi- E i method). However, in conventional chopper systems, optimization of the experimental condition for all incident energies is absolutely impossible. We developed a new Fermi chopper with a supermirror-coated slit package in order to overcome the problem and experimentally demonstrated that the full optimization of the experimental condition for multiple incident energies is nearly achieved.

4SEASONS is a medium-resolution thermal neutron chopper spectrometer in the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) at J-PARC. Although 4SEASONS is routinely used for many experiments by internal and external users, upgrading and maintenance work is still underway. This paper reviews the recent improvements of the instrument.

The time-of-flight (TOF) type near-backscattering spectrometer (n-BSS), DNA, with Si crystal analyzers was built and started operation in 2012 at the Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) of the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). DNA is the first n-BSS with pulse shaping chopper installed at a spallation pulsed neutron source. It offers currently the highest energy-resolution of about 2.4 micro eV by operating a pulse shaping double-disk chopper at 225 Hz whose phase is optimized to the narrowest slit of 10 mm width. Energy resolution can be flexibly compromised with intensity during experiment by using two type slits with different widths and changing the copper frequency. An example of measurement with high energy-resolution under the condition that the pulse shaping chopper was operated is shown, where the limited measurable energy range was widely expanded by multi incident energy band technique. The experimental data demonstrate extremely high signal-to-noise ratio (~10 5 ) of this spectrometer.

We report recent progress in improvement of the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio on the Fermi chopper spectrometer 4SEASONS at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). We could much reduce the background scattering by installing vanes made of B4C resin inside the vacuum scattering chamber and polyethylene plates behind the detector bank. The improved S/N ratio enables a measurement with a short time or with a small sample.

AMATERAS is a new disk-chopper-type spectrometer installed at Materials and Life Science Experimental Facility (MLF) of J-PARC. AMATERAS is equipped with an extra chopper for pulse shaping at the upstream position, in addition to a monochromating chopper, which conventional chopper spectrometers at pulsed source have. Owing to the use of these choppers and the high peak intensity from a coupled moderator source at MLF, the AMATERAS design realizes high-intensity and high-energy-resolution measurements in quasielastic and inelastic neutron scattering experiments. The spectrometer had the first neutron beam in May 2009. During the course of commissioning, the performance of the spectrometer was confirmed by conducting test experiments. AMATERAS is now open to users and is producing scientific outputs.