Overview of the J-PARC Project

From Japanese fiscal year JFY01, which started on April 1, 2001, a new accelerator project to provide high-intensity proton beams proceeded into its construction phase. This project, which is now called the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC) project, is in progress under a cooperation of two institutions, High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) and Japan Atomic Energy Research Institution (JAERI). We set a goal to achieve 1MW proton beams at 3 GeV and 0.75MW beams at 50 GeV. The construction period is seven years, with anticipated first beams in the spring of 2008. In this article, I will describe the project itself and the present status of the project.