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SPring-8 (an acronym of Super Photon Ring – 8 GeV) is asynchrotron radiation facility located inSayo Town,Sayo District,Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, which is the main facility ofHarima Science Garden City. It was developed jointly byRIKEN and theJapan Atomic Energy Research Institute, and is owned and managed by RIKEN, and run under commission by theJapan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute. The machine consists of a storage ring containing an 8 GeVelectron beam. On its path around the storage ring, the beam passes throughinsertion devices to produce synchrotron radiation with energies ranging from softX-rays (300eV) up to hard X-rays (300 keV). The synchrotron radiation produced at SPring-8 is used for materials analysis andbiochemicalprotein characterization by many Japanese manufacturers and universities.
Together with theAdvanced Photon Source atArgonne National Laboratory and theCornell High Energy Synchrotron Source atCornell University in the United States, theEuropean Synchrotron Radiation Facility inGrenoble, France, andPETRA atDESY in Hamburg, Germany, it is one of the five large (beam energy greater than 5 GeV) synchrotron radiation facilities in the world.
The Laser Electron Photon Experiment at SPring-8 (LEPS) is an experiment producing high-energy (GeV)photon beams by theinverse Compton scattering of photons upon the 8 GeVelectrons of the SPring-8 synchrotron. These are then used for variousparticle physics experiments onhadrons. The first beam was produced in 1999, and data-taking commenced in 2000.[1]
The collaboration is known for their reports of aresonance which they interpret as a
Θ+
pentaquark candidate made of twoup quarks, twodown quarks and astrange antiquark (uudds). The 2008Review of Particle Physics of theParticle Data Group ruled out the existence of this resonance,[2] but new reports from LEPS indicate that the resonance could be seen in the
γ
d
→
K+
K−
p
n
channel.[3]
The materials analysis at SPring-8 can be used as forensics to identify substances for police investigations by detecting the types and combinations of impurities. For example, in the 1998Wakayama curry poisoning incident, the arsenic used as the poisoning agent in a communal pot of curry contained trace impurities of bismuth and antimony, which were also present in arsenic found in the perpetrator's home.[4][5]
In another case, evidence from SPring-8 led to the arrest of three former members of theAum Shinrikyo cult suspected in the 1995 shooting of Takaji Kunimatsu, Japan's head of the National Police Agency at the time.[5] Like the curry poisoning incident, impurities in the metal traces in the coat of a suspect were matched to impurities in the gun used in the shooting.
In theGhost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIGanime series, SPring-8 is mentioned several times, and is the facility where the characterIshikawa takes a sample of weapons-gradePlutonium to be analyzed to verify its source.
InSalvation of a Saint, a piece of evidence is sent to SPring-8 for analysis.
34°56′41″N134°25′38″E / 34.94472°N 134.42722°E /34.94472; 134.42722
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