Muon cooling is the main technological obstacle in the building of a muon collider. A muon cooling scheme based on Frictional Cooling holds promise in overcoming this obstacle. An experiment designed to demonstrate the Frictional Cooling concept using protons was undertaken. Although the results were inconclusive in the observation of cooling, the data allowed for the qualification of detailed simulations which are used to simulate the performance of a muon collider.
A muon collider would open new frontiers of investigation in high energy particle physics, allowing precision measurements to be made at the TeV energy frontier. One of the greatest challenges to constructing a muon collider is the preparation of a beam of muons on a timescale comparable to the lifetime of the muon. Frictional cooling is a potential solution to this problem. In this paper, we briefly describe frictional cooling and detail the Frictional Cooling Demonstration (FCD) experiment at the Max Planck Institute for Physics, Munich. The FCD experiment, which aims to verify the working p…
Muon Colliders would usher in a new era of scientific investigation in the field of high energy particle physics. The cooling of muon beams is proving to be the greatest obstacle in the realization of a Muon Collider. Monte Carlo simulations of a muon cooling scheme based on Frictional Cooling were performed. Critical issues, which require further study, relating to the technical feasibility of such a scheme are identified. Frictional Cooling, as outlined in this paper, provides sufficient six-dimensional emittance to make luminous collisions possible. It holds exciting potential in solving th…
Low-energy muon beams are useful for a range of physics experiments. We consider the production of low-energy muon beams with small energy spreads using frictional cooling. As the input beam, we take a surface muon source such as that at the Paul Scherrer Institute. Simulations show that the efficiency of low energy muon production can potentially be raised to 1%, which is significantly higher than that of current schemes.
One of the focuses of research and development towards the construction of a muon collider is muon beam preparation. Simulation of frictional cooling shows that it can achieve the desired emittance reduction to produce high-luminosity muon beams. We show that for positively charged particles, charge exchange interactions necessitate significant changes to schemes previously developed for negatively charged particles. We also demonstrate that foil-based schemes are not viable for positive particles.
Muon colliders have been proposed for the next generation of particle accelerators that study high-energy physics at the energy and intensity frontiers. In this paper we study a possible implementation of muon ionization cooling, Parametric-resonance Ionization Cooling (PIC), in the twin helix channel. The resonant cooling method of PIC offers the potential to reduce emittance beyond that achievable with ionization cooling with ordinary magnetic focusing. We examine optimization of a variety of parameters, study the nonlinear dynamics in the twin helix channel and consider possible methods of …
The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory has studied ionization cooling of muons. Several million individual muon tracks have been recorded passing through a series of focusing magnets and a liquid hydrogen or lithium hydride absorber in a variety of magnetic configurations. Identification and measurement of muon tracks upstream and downstream of the absorber are used to study the evolution of the 4D emittance. This paper presents and discusses these results.
The international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) will perform a systematic investigation of ionization cooling of a muon beam. The demonstration is based on a simplified version of a neutrino factory cooling channel. As the emittance measurement will be done on a particle-by-particle basis, sophisticated beam instrumentation has been developed to measure particle coordinates and timing vs RF. The muon beamline has been characterized and a preliminary measure of the beam emittance, using a particle-by-particle method with only the TOF detector system, has been performed (MICE STEP I)…
We demonstrate practical accelerating gradients on a superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) accelerator cavity with cryocooler conduction cooling, a cooling technique that does not involve the complexities of the conventional liquid helium bath. A design is first presented that enables conduction cooling an elliptical-cell SRF cavity. Implementing this design, a single cell 650 MHz Nb3Sn cavity coupled using high purity aluminum thermal links to a 4 K pulse tube cryocooler generated accelerating gradients up to 6.6 MV/m at 100% duty cycle. The experiments were carried out with the cavity-cryocoo…
Ionization cooling is the preferred method for producing bright muon beams. This cooling technique requires the operation of normal conducting, radio-frequency (RF) accelerating cavities within the multi-tesla fields of DC solenoid magnets. Under these conditions, cavities exhibit increased susceptibility to RF breakdown, which can damage channel components and imposes limits on channel length and transmission efficiency. We present a solution to the problem of breakdown in strong magnetic fields. We report, for the first time, stable high-vacuum, copper cavity operation at gradients above 50 …
Particle accelerators and storage rings have been transformative instruments of discovery, and, for many applications, innovations in particle-beam cooling have been a principal driver of that success1. Beam cooling reduces the spread in particle positions and momenta, while keeping the number of particles constant, and combats diffusive effects, thereby enabling particle accumulation and the production and preservation of intense beams. In the case of particle colliders, cooling increases the likelihood of observing rare physics events. One of the most important conceptual and technological a…
Optical Stochastic Cooling (OSC) is an optical-bandwidth extension of Stochastic Cooling that could advance the state-of-the-art cooling rate in beam cooling by three to four orders of magnitude [1-3]. The concept of OSC was first suggested in the early 1990s by Zolotorev, Zholents and Mikhailichenko, and replaced the microwave hardware of SC with optical analogs, such as wigglers and optical amplifiers. A number of variations on the original OSC concept have been proposed, and while a variety of proof-of-principle demonstrations and operational uses have been considered, the concept was not e…
The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory aims to demonstrate $\approx$ 10% ionization cooling of a muon beam by its interaction with low-Z absorber materials followed by restoration of longitudinal momentum in RF linacs. MICE Step IV, including the first LH2 or LiH absorber cell sandwiched between two particle tracking spectrometers, is the collaboration's near-term goal. Two large superconducting spectrometer solenoids and one focus coil solenoid will provide a magnetic field of $\approx$4 T in the tracker and absorber-cell volumes. The status of the…
Cooling of hadron beams is critically important in the next generation of hadron storage rings for delivery of unprecedented performance. One such application is the electron-ion collider presently under development in the US. The desire to develop electron coolers for operation at much higher energies than previously achieved necessitates the use of radio-frequency (RF) fields for acceleration as opposed to the conventional, electrostatic approach. While electron cooling is a mature technology at low energy utilizing a DC beam, RF acceleration requires the cooling beam to be bunched, thus ext…
Muon accelerators offer an attractive option for a range of future particle physics experiments. They can enable high energy (TeV+) high energy lepton colliders whilst mitigating the difficulty of synchrotron losses, and can provide intense beams of neutrinos for fundamental physics experiments investigating the physics of flavor. The method of production of muon beams results in high beam emittance which must be reduced for efficient acceleration. Conventional emittance control schemes take too long, given the very short (2.2 microsecond) rest lifetime of the muon. Ionisation cooling offers a…
Muon beams of low emittance provide the basis for the intense, well-characterised neutrino beams necessary to elucidate the physics of flavour at a neutrino factory and to provide lepton-antilepton collisions at energies of up to several TeV at a muon collider. The international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) aims to demonstrate ionization cooling, the technique by which it is proposed to reduce the phase-space volume occupied by the muon beam at such facilities. In an ionization-cooling channel, the muon beam passes through a material in which it loses energy. The energy lost is th…
Emittance exchange mediated by wedge absorbers is required for longitudinal ionization cooling and for final transverse emittance minimization for a muon collider. A wedge absorber within the MICE beam line could serve as a demonstration of the type of emittance exchange needed for 6-D cooling, including the configurations needed for muon colliders. Parameters for this test are explored in simulation and possible experimental configurations with simulated results are presented.
High-brightness muon beams of energy comparable to those produced by state-of-the-art electron, proton and ion accelerators have yet to be realised. Such beams have the potential to carry the search for new phenomena in lepton-antilepton collisions to extremely high energy and also to provide uniquely well-characterised neutrino beams. A muon beam may be created through the decay of pions produced in the interaction of a proton beam with a target. To produce a high-brightness beam from such a source requires that the phase space volume occupied by the muons be reduced (cooled). Ionization cool…
We are currently operating the front end of the accelerator production of tritium (APT) accelerator, a 7 MeV radio frequency quadrapole (RFQ) using three, 1.2 MW CW klystrons. These klystrons are required and designed to dissipate the full beam power in the collector. The klystrons have less than 1500 operational hours. One collector has failed and all collectors are damaged. This paper will discuss the damage and the difficulties in diagnosing the cause. The collector did not critically fail. Tube operation was still possible and the klystron operated up to 70% of full beam power with excelle…
The international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) will perform a systematic investigation of ionization cooling of a muon beam. The demonstration comprises one cell of the US Neutrino Factory Study II cooling channel. Results obtained on the construction of the beamline and its instrumentation (STEP I) will be reviewed, together with progress towards final measurements of ionization cooling (STEP IV and VI).
Muon colliders and neutrino factories are attractive options for future facilities aimed at achieving the highest lepton-antilepton collision energies and precision measurements of parameters of the Higgs boson and the neutrino mixing matrix. The performance and cost of these depend on how well a beam of muons can be cooled. Recent progress in muon cooling design studies and prototype tests nourishes the hope that such facilities can be built during the coming decade. The status of the key technologies and their various demonstration experiments is summarized.
Emittance exchange mediated by wedge absorbers can be used for longitudinal ionization cooling and for final transverse emittance minimization for a muon collider. A wedge absorber within the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) could serve as a demonstration of the type of emittance exchange needed for six-dimensional (6D) cooling, including the configurations needed for muon colliders. Parameters for this test have been explored in simulation and applied to experimental configurations using a wedge-shaped absorber. A polyethylene wedge absorber has been fabricated and placed in MICE and…
Muon-based accelerators have the potential to enable facilities at both the Intensity and the Energy Frontiers. Muon storage rings can serve as high precision neutrino sources, and a muon collider is an ideal technology for a TeV or multi-TeV collider. Progress in muon accelerator designs has advanced steadily in recent years. In regard to 6D muon cooling, detailed and realistic designs now exist that provide more than 5 order-of-magnitude emittance reduction. Furthermore, detector performance studies indicate that with suitable pixelation and timing resolution, backgrounds in the collider det…
Muon colliders and neutrino factories are attractive options for future facilities aimed at achieving the highest lepton-antilepton collision energies and precision measurements of parameters of the Higgs boson and the neutrino mixing matrix. The performance and cost of these depend on how well a beam of muons can be cooled. Recent progress in muon cooling design studies and prototype tests nourishes the hope that such facilities can be built starting in the coming decade. The status of the key technologies and their various demonstration experiments is summarized, with emphasis on recent resu…
Development of energy-efficient fast cycling accelerator magnets is critical for the next generation of proton rapid cycling synchrotrons (RCS) for neutrino research and booster accelerators of future muon colliders. We see a unique opportunity for having such magnets to be built on base of High Temperature Superconductors (HTS). Besides being superconducting at relatively high temperatures, rare-earth HTS tapes have shown very small AC losses compared to low-temperature NbTi superconductor cables. Recent tests of the HTS-based 0.5 m long two-bore superconducting accelerator magnet have shown …
Muon colliders and neutrino factories are attractive options for future facilities aimed at achieving the highest lepton-antilepton collision energies and precision measurements of Higgs boson and neutrino mixing matrix parameters. The facility performance and cost depend on how well a beam of muons can be cooled. Recent progress in muon cooling design studies and prototype tests nourishes the hope that such facilities could be built starting in the coming decade. The status of the key technologies and their various demonstration experiments is summarized. Prospects "post-P5" are also discusse…
Muon Colliders have unique technical and physics advantages and disadvantages when compared with both hadron and electron machines. They should thus be regarded as complementary. Parameters are given of 4 TeV and 0.5 TeV high luminosity \mumu colliders, and of a 0.5 TeV lower luminosity demonstration machine. We discuss the various systems in such muon colliders, starting from the proton accelerator needed to generate the muons and proceeding through muon cooling, acceleration and storage in a collider ring. Problems of detector background are also discussed.
