Prelims: Current events of national and international importance | Science and Technology
Why in News?
Recently, India has developed and delivered the first of three beam catcher units to the FAIR for International Mega Science Project .
Beam Catcher Equipment
- This equipment is a critical part of the super fragment separator (super‑FRS) that produces radioactive beams.
- Function – Absorbs remnants of primary heavy‑ion beams (0.4–1.5 GeV/nucleon) after hitting production targets.
- Energy Deposition – 29 kJ per spill in graphite within 50–100 ns pulses; peak density 300 J/g per pulse.
- Challenge – High thermal shock waves in absorbers.
- Structure – Vacuum chamber (1600 mm × 600 mm × 2620 mm) at 10⁻⁷ mbar.
- Materials – Fine‑grained graphite and hyper‑pure copper absorbers.
- Cooling – Water‑cooled to prevent melting.
- Shielding – Iron plates for radiation protection.
FAIR – Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research
- Location – Darmstadt, Germany.
- Founding Members – Finland, France, Germany, India (the only non-European shareholder), Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovenia and Sweden.
India signed convention on 2010 at Wiesbaden.
- Funded jointly by Department of Science and Technology (DST) and Department of Atomic Energy (DAE).
- Bose Institute, Kolkata is the nodal Indian institution and shareholder in FAIR GmbH.
Other Indian Contributions to FAIR
- Ultra-High Vacuum Chambers
- IT and Diagnostic Cables
- Power Converters
- Cryogenic Components
- Detector Systems
Reference
PIB | FAIR
