Re: PF and PF-AR Operating Schedule in 2014

July 28, 2014


Photon Factory
Institute of Materials Structure Science
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization
Director Youichi Murakami

The Photon Factory strongly believes that the most important requirement is to schedule at least 4,000 hours per year (approximately 170 days) for user experiments in order to allow the more than 3,000 registered users to obtain study results for around 900 effective proposals per year. We have made every effort to maintain that scheduling despite our budget becoming tighter and tighter every year. However, as we mentioned before, we found that it would be very difficult to schedule enough time for user experiments in 2014, and have recently determined that the time available is 2,328 hours for PF (97 days) and 1,992 hours (83 days) for PF-AR. In addition, no hours for user operation will be available in the third period in FY2014 (January to March 2015).

The major reasons for this decision are the drastic cost-cutting for the Photon Factory and the massive increase in electricity prices. The operating budget allocated to the Photon Factory in 2014 was reduced by approximately 13% on the previous year, and it has become very difficult to allocate enough money to cover the electricity expense, gas charges, and water bills for operating our facilities. In addition, the influence of the increase in electricity prices following the earthquake disaster of 2011 was severe, and as a result, we cannot budget the same number of hours as in the past this year. Under such circumstances, we have cut maintenance costs on light sources and beam lines to a greater degree than we did in the past in PF. Unfortunately, however, as previously mentioned, 2,328 hours per year for user experiments is the maximum we can allocate in this year. We are sorry for causing so much inconvenience with respect to studies and the education of graduates, but we would appreciate your understanding in this matter.

The Photon Factory is collaborating with the user organization, PF-UA, and making efforts to recover as much operating time as possible for next year and following years. During this critical time, we hope you and all other users will provide supports toward our efforts.