Yuki Abe, a second-year student at the Ichinoseki National Institute of Technology majoring in industrial technology, was awarded the Annual Meeting Prize (poster division) for students and young researchers from the Particle Accelerator Society of Japan (Chair: Ryoichi Hajima). This is the seventh award they have given, and the first time for a national institute of technology (ie, a vocational school) to be awarded the prize. The prize was awarded for joint research done with industry and academia regarding the ILC. Mr. Abe’s passion for research has grown in hopes of the ILC being potentially realized in the Kitakami mountains of Iwate.

The research was done jointly between Mr. Abe, Prof. Yasunori Fujiwara and upperclassmen at the institute, 2 Ichinoseki-area companies, and KEK. It was started in 2016.

The ILC will accelerate and smash together elementary particles (electrons and positrons) at close to the speed of light in a superconducting cavity. A 12 meter-long cylinder called a cryomodule would encase these cavities. Mr. Abe and his colleagues researched an active mover mechanism that would attach the cryomodule with its foundation platform, and would be able to adjust the cryomodule’s position remotely. This would play a large role in the acceleration and collision of particles.

Using a 1/7th scale model, they research two methods that used cams to transform rotary motion into linear motion. They had aimed for a precision level of 10 micrometers with both methods, but were able to achieve a level of 1 micrometer. They have started research on a real model. In the past, this sort of position adjustment has been done by hand, so a remote mechanism would allow a great reduction in labor.

Mr. Abe won the prize at the annual meeting of the Particle Accelerator Society held in Nagaoka City in Niigata Prefecture in August. He said, “I’m so happy that the efforts of my team, made up of my teacher, my upperclassmen, and people from local businesses, was recognized on a national scale by this society.”

Next spring, Mr. Abe will go on to study at the School of High Energy Accelerator Science at KEK. His dreams have grown: “I hope to get involved with the ILC as an engineer for the accelerator.”