The third meeting of the International Advisory Committee (IAC) for the High Energy Photon Source (HEPS) was held in Huairou from Jan. 14 to 16, followed by a dedicated session for HEPS phase II beamlines on Jan. 17. It was chaired by Harald Reichert from DESY and co-chaired by Alex Chao from SLAC. Nineteen IAC members from international institutes and universities, as well as the HEPS project management team, attended the meeting.

PAN Weimin, the HEPS project director, gave a welcome address. He welcomed IAC members and hoped that they would review the progress of HEPS and the Phase II plan. During the meeting, DONG Yuhui, the deputy executive director, and 31 speakers presented the latest progress on HEPS and the plan for Phase II, including project management and risk analysis of key technologies. The HEPS project officially began construction on June 29th, 2019, and the project is estimated to be completed by the end of 2025. Since the last IAC meeting in December 2019, significant progress has been made. The Linac was commissioned in March 2023, followed by the successful commissioning of the booster ring in November 2023. The storage ring has completed its installation, and beam commissioning is underway. Additionally, the first group of Phase I beamlines, consisting of 7 beamlines, is undergoing installation and photon beam commissioning. Meanwhile, the second group, consisting of 8 beamlines, is mostly in the equipment production and installation phase. A significant amount of preparatory work and meetings have been conducted to start the selection of a portfolio of Phase-II beamlines. The committee is very impressed by the progress achieved by the entire HEPS team. The conventional facilities have been delivered and are working without problems, and the team has demonstrated confidence in taking on and completing innovations such as 166MHz SRF, swap-out injection, Apple-Knot, and Mango wiggler.

Furthermore, in-depth presentations and discussions were held at the system level, and IAC members advised on related matters of the HEPS project. In the summary recommendation, the committee noted the importance of resource management during technical commissioning. They also suggested re-evaluating the distribution of the time required to reach the goals in each area (beamlines, accelerator, user facility, etc.) for the Phase II, and integrating the Phase-I beamlines into the planning.

The HEPS IAC was established in July 2018. The committee is responsible for assessing the construction and commissioning progress, the future commissioning plan towards the HEPS target, as well as Phase II project.

Click the link to download the photos: https://docs.ihep.ac.cn/link/AA44B6CF320C4E4B3DBD1C9771D5816121