LAHN: the Argentine Neutron Beam Laboratory of the RA-10 reactor

SANTISTEBAN, J.; PIERPAULI, K; AURELIO, G.; CANTARGI, F.; VICENTE ÁLVAREZ, M.; SUAREZ, F.

Buenos Aires

Conferencia; International Conference on Research Reactors: Addressing Challenges and Opportunities to Ensure Effectiveness and Sustainability; 2020

IAEA

The Argentine Neutron Beam Laboratory (LAHN) will be a large-scale facility available to users worldwide, equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation to fully exploit the neutron beams produced by the RA- 10 reactor in the area of science and technology. The neutrons of a thermal D2O source (~4x1014 n/cm2.s) and from a cold D2 source (~1x1014 n/cm2.s) will illuminate instruments located at a large neutron guide hall (~70x50m2), and at a hall directly adjacent to the reactor face. We envisage LAHN as a national laboratory which should become the leading institution in neutron science in Latin America. The main challenges of the LAHN project are (i) to implement a suite of state-of-the-art neutron scattering instruments, (ii) to build a solid neutron scattering user community, (iii) to train the human resources necessary for defining, implementing, operating and using the instruments. Here we present the strategies and activities developed to achieve these goals. This includes a description of the suite of eight instruments defined for the first stage of the laboratory, together with their scientific cases and the different strategies adopted for their provision. We also describe a comprehensive program developed to foster the user community, train human resources and increase LAHN visibility in order to reach a wider group of stakeholders.