From the Correspondents

News from Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

The Radiation Physics Department at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) was host to the sixth international workshop on Shielding Aspects of Accelerators, Targets, and Irradiation Facilities (SATIF-6) that was held at SLAC from April 10-12, 2002. Fifty-five radiation physicists from national laboratories, companies, universities, and medical centers from ten countries and two international organizations participated in the two-and-a-half-day workshop. Thirty-three papers on shielding of proton, electron, and heavy ion accelerators and spallation sources were presented in the meeting. See the complete program on the website.

Results of measurement and calculation of radiation fields inside the accelerator and outside the shield, measurement and calculation of induced activity in beamline components and the environment, and benchmarking of Monte Carlo computer codes were among the subjects discussed in the meeting.

The activities of the task force on SATIF are sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD's) Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and its Nuclear Science Committee (NSC). The main objectives of the SATIF meetings are to

promote the exchange of information among experts in the field of accelerator shielding and related topics,
identify areas where international cooperation can be fruitful, and
carry on a program of work to achieve progress in specific priority areas.

SATIF is jointly organized by the OECD's NEA, the Radiation Safety Information Computational Center (RSICC), and the Shielding Working Group of the Reactor Physics Committee of Japan.

SLAC's Radiation Physics Department has been active in SATIF from its beginning. Recently, to better prepare for the Next Linear Collider (NLC) design, it has aligned part of its research goals with those of SATIF. Members of the department have been involved in joint collaborative efforts with radiation physicists from Japan and CERN and have made extensive use of the Test Beam Program at SLAC. SLAC's Radiation Physics Department was well represented at SATIF-6 with one paper on the NLC design simulations, and three papers on results of recent collaborative efforts on experiments performed in the Beam Dump East and the Final Focus Test Beam (FFTB) in collaboration with Tohoku University, SPring-8, and CERN.