Unfortunately, OPAL's cold neutron source is still out of operation, and we do not expect it to recommence routine service until 14th December 2009, at the earliest.
In part, this is due to a planned long reactor shutdown between 18 November and 13 December 2009.
This has serious implications for the present proposal round, which closes on 27th November, because we have been building up a backlog of approved user experiments on the two instruments that view the cold source, our PLATYPUS reflectometer and our QUOKKA small-angle neutron scattering instrument.
PLATYPUS is currently carrying a backlog of 150 days of approved experiments, from the last 2 proposal rounds, and we have concluded that we cannot fulfil these commitments and offer more beam time in the round that closes on 27 November.
The situation on QUOKKA is similar, but we are only carrying a 60-day backlog of approved experiments from the last round.
If the cold source does resume operation on 14 December, we should be in a position to offer a limited amount of beam time on QUOKKA in the present proposal round.
Both the OPAL reactor schedule and a list of deadlines at other leading neutron sources is available on the Web.
Our other five operating instruments, ECHIDNA, WOMBAT, KOWARI, KOALA and TAIPAN, all of which view the (thermal) D2O source, are unaffected by the problems with the cold source, and will have the full allocation of beam days in the present proposal round.
Published: 13/11/2009