The cost of being landlocked : logistics costs and supply chain reliability

A large proportion of the least developed countries are landlocked and their access to world markets depends on the availability of a trade corridor and transit systems. Based on empirical evidence from World Bank projects and assessments in Africa, Central Asia, and elsewhere, this paper proposes a microeconomic quantitative description of logistics costs. The paper theoretically and empirically highlights that landlocked economies are primarily affected not only by a high cost of freight services but also by the high degree of unpredictability in transportation time. The main sources of costs are not only physical constraints but widespread rent activities and severe flaws in the implementation of the transit systems, which prevent the emergence of reliable logistics services. The business and donor community should push toward implementation of comprehensive facilitation strategies, primarily at the national level, and the design of robust and resilient transport and transit regimes. A better understanding of the political economy of transit and a review of the implementation successes and failures in this area are needed.Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Transport and Trade Logistics,Common Carriers Industry,Economic Theory&Research,Rural Roads&Transport

SOLEIL Status Report

International audienceSOLEIL is both a synchrotron light source and a research laboratory at the cutting edge of experimental techniques dedicated to matter analysis down to the atomic scale, as well as a service platform open to all scientific and industrial communities. This French 2.75 GeV third generation synchrotron light source provides today extremely stable photon beams to 29 beamlines (BLs) complementary to ESRF. We report facility performance, ongoing projects and recent major achievements. A significant work was performed in order to secure the operation of the two canted 5.5 mm in-vacuum cryogenic permanent magnet undulators (CPMUs). Major R&D areas will also be discussed, and progress towards a lattice baseline for making SOLEIL a diffraction limited storage ring

Construction and Optimization of Cryogenic Undulators at SOLEIL

International audienceWith permanent magnets undulator operation at cryogenic temperature, the magnetic field and the coercivity can be enhanced, enabling shorter periods with high magnetic fields. The first full scale (2 m long, 18 mm period) hybrid cryogenic undulator [1] using PrFeB [2] magnets operating at 77 K was installed at SOLEIL in 2011. Photon spectra measurements, in good agreement with the ex-pectations from magnetic measurements, were used for precise alignment and taper optimization. The second and third 18 mm PrFeB cryogenic undulators, modified to a half-pole/magnet/half-pole structure, were optimized without any magnet or pole shimming after assembly but mechanical sortings and some geometrical corrections had been done before assembly. A systematic error on individual magnets on the third U18 was also compensated. In-situ measurement benches, including a Hall probe and a stretched wire to optimize the undulator field at room and cryogenic temperature are presented. An upgrade of these in-situ benches will be detailed with the fabrication of a 15 mm 3 m long PrFeB cryogenic undulator at SOLEIL

Electron Transport on COXINEL Beam Line

International audienceCOXINEL experiment aims at demonstrating free electron laser (FEL) amplification with a laser plasma accelerator (LPA). For COXINEL, a dedicated 8 m transport line has been designed and prepared at SOLEIL. We present here LPA beam transport results around 180 MeV through this line. Different electron beam optics were applied

Control of Laser Plasma Accelerated Electrons: A Route for Compact Free Electron Lasers

International audienceThe recent spectacular development of laser plasma ac- celerators that now can deliver GeV electron beams in an extremelyshortdistancemakesthemverypromising. Ap- plications for light sources based on undulator radiation and free electron laser appear as an intermediate step to move from an acceleration concept to an accelerator qual- ification. However, the presently achieved divergence and energy spread require some electron beam manipulations. The COXINEL test line was designed for enabling Free Elec- tron Laser operation with baseline reference parameters. It comprises variable permanent magnet quadrupoles for di- vergence handling, a magnetic chicane for electron energy sorting, a second set of quadrupole for chromatic focusing and an undulator for synchrotron radiation emission and/or free electron laser gain medium. The transport along the line is controlled [1]. The synchrotron radiation emitted by the undulator radiation is studied under different conditions of detection (CCD camera, spectrometer), electron beam manipulation and undulator parameters. These observations pave the way towards Laser Plasma Acceleration based Free Electron Laser

Transportation and Manipulation of a Laser Plasma Acceleration Beam

International audienceThe ERC Advanced Grant COXINEL aims at demonstrating free electron laser amplification, at a resonant wavelength of 200 nm, based on a laser plasma acceleration source. To achieve the amplification, a 10 m long dedicated transport line was designed to manipulate the beam qualities. It starts with a triplet of permanent magnet with tunable gradient quadrupoles (QUAPEVA) that handles the highly divergent electron beam, a demixing chicane with a slit to reduce the energy spread per slice, and a set of electromagnetic quadrupoles to provide a chromatic focusing in a 2 m long cryogenic undulator. Electrons of energy 176 MeV were successfully transported throughout the line, where the beam positioning and dispersion were controlled efficiently thanks to a specific beam based alignment method, as well as the energy range by varying the slit width. Observations of undulator radiation for different undulator gaps are reported

Progress Towards Laser Plasma Electron Based Free Electron Laser on COXINEL

International audienceLaser plasma acceleration (LPA) with up to several GeV beam in very short distance appears very promising. The Free Electron Laser (FEL), though very challenging, can be viewed as a qualifying application of these new emerging LPAs. The energy spread and divergence, larger than from conventional accelerators used for FEL, have to be manipulated to fulfil the FEL requirements. On the test experiment COXINEL (ERC340015), the beam is controlled in a manipulation [1,2] line, using permanent magnet quadrupoles of variable strength [3] for emittance handing and a decompression chicane equipped with a slit for the energy selection, enabling FEL amplification for baseline reference parameters [2]. The electron position and dispersion are independently adjusted [4]. The measured spontaneous emission radiated by a 2 m long 18 mm period cryo-ready undulator exhibits the typical undulator spatio-spectral pattern, in agreement with the modelling of the electron beam travelling along the line and of the afferent photon generation. The wavelength is easily tuned with undulator gap variation. A wavelength stability of 2.6% is achieved. The undulator linewidth can be controlled

Study of the Electron Transport in the COXINEL FEL Beamline Using a Laser-Plasma Accelerated Electron Beam

International audienceThe ERC Advanced Grant COXINEL aims at demonstrating free electron laser (FEL) at 200 nm, based on a laser-plasma accelerator (LPA). To achieve the FEL amplification a transport line was designed to manipulate the beam properties. The 10 m long COXINEL line comprises a first triplet of permanent-magnet variable-strength quadrupoles (QUAPEVA), which handles the large divergence of LPA electrons, a magnetic chicane, which reduces the slice energy spread, and finally a set of electromagnetic quadrupoles, which provides a chromatic focusing in a 2-m undulator. Electrons were successfully transported through the line from LPA with ionization-assisted self-injection (broad energy spectra up to~250 MeV, few-milliradian divergence)

Towards a Free Electron Laser Using Laser Plasma Acceleration

International audienceSince the laser invention, the advent of X-ray Free Electron Lasers (FEL) half a century later, opens new areas for matter investigation. In parallel, the spectacular development of laser plasma acceleration (LPA) with several GeV beam acceleration in an extremely short distance appears very promising. As a first step, the qualification of the LPA with a FEL application sets a first challenge. Still, energy spread and beam divergence do not meet the state-of-the-art performance of the conventional accelerators and have to be manipulated to fulfill the FEL requirement. We report here on the undulator spontaneous emission measured after a transport manipulation electron beam line, using variable permanent magnet quadrupoles of variable strength for emittance handing and a demixing chicane equipped with a slit for the energy spread. Strategies of control electron beam position and dispersion have been elaborated. The measured undulator radiation provides an insight on the electron beam properties