ESS Scandinavia is laying the first bricks of the international ESS organisation by the strengthening of technological and scientific competences in areas of crucial importance to the construction of ESS. Recent progress includes collaborations with leading laboratories, the recruitment of key experts and the development of technical planning.

The European Spallation Source will be the world’s most powerful neutron source for materials research and life science. ESS Scandinavia proposes that the ESS is built in Lund in southern Scandinavia.

ESS Scandinavia is now in the starting blocks to begin the construction of the ESS, awaiting a site decision. Core competences are being assembled at the Secretariat in Lund, in parallel with the setting-up of collaborations with those international laboratories and institutes whose expertise and qualities are needed for the construction of the ESS.

Three key initiatives have been launched:

• Preparation for a Design Review

  As soon as a site decision is announced an ESS Design Review will begin. Lund is ready to lead this process.

  The ESS Scandinavia Technical Team is working on the optimization of the proton accelerator and target design, with the goal of maximizing the scientific output and effectiveness of the ESS. For the pan-European Design Review, the Swedish government has announced that it will guarantee the 30 million euro price-tag for this study.

  In order to move ahead swiftly on the planning of in-kind contributions from European industry and the design effort bringing in international laboratories and universities from Partner countries, ESS Scandinavia has set up two new accelerator working groups:

  The International Reference Group consists of world-class accelerator experts, willing to offer the latest ideas and experience to the ESS accelerator design Review process. The participating experts come from CERN in Geneva, CEA in France, Brookhaven and Fermilab in the USA. Later this spring the International Reference Group will be expanded with scientists from the Cockcroft Institute in the UK, from the HZ Jülich in Germany and from the INFN in Legnaro, Italy.

  The Regional Coordination Group, a nucleus for the European accelerator collaboration, will initiate ESS accelerator activities in the host countries and will prepare for the finalization of the technical design. The participating experts represent CERN, the University of Århus, MAX-lab in Lund, the Svedberg Laboratory in Uppsala and the Manne Siegbahn Laboratory in Stockholm.

• The recruitment of key personnel

  ESS Scandinavia is attracting highly qualified experts to Lund, laying the first bricks in the future international ESS organisation. In just eighteen months, the ESS Scandinavia team has grown from four to 32 persons employed in Lund.

  Recently, Dr Mats Lindroos was engaged to lead the accelerator & target development work, together with Eng. Francois Plewinski and Dr Stephen Peggs. Dr Lindroos has been leading the design studies of several CERN projects, such as ISOLDE and EURISOL, and been a member of the OECD Global Science Forum.

  Dr Peggs, currently on sabbatical leave from Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA, previously lead a U.S. collaboration performing accelerator R&D for the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Francois Plewinski, a French nuclear engineer, was previously the project leader of the seismic refit programme at the ILL, Grenoble, and safety officer at ITER in Cadarache. In addition, five scientists and engineers have been employed to work jointly at ESS in Lund and in CERN, to contribute to both the Large Hadron Collider programme and the ESS technical design.

• Building up collaborations with leading laboratories

  ESS Scandinavia is fast building up a collaborative network of those international laboratories and institutes whose competence is needed for the construction of the ESS.
  In addition to the collaboration agreements earlier concluded with world-leading particle physics laboratory CERN and the Spallation Neutron Source at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, other formal links have been set up, which lead to technical research programmes. ESS Scandinavia will collaborate with Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany on the build-up of a high-precision instrument for polymers and bio-materials at the SNS research center in Tennessee, USA. Soon new links with leading laboratories will be concluded.