A high-intensity hyperon beam was constructed at CERN to deliver Sigma- to experiment WA89 at the Omega facility and operated from 1989 to 1994. The setup allowed rapid changeover between hyperon and conventional hadron beam configurations. The beam provided a Sigma-flux of 1.4 x 10^5 per burst at mean momenta between 330 and 345 Gev/c, produced by about 3 x 10^10 protons of 450 GeV/c . At the experiment target the beam had a Sigma-/pi- ratio close to 0.4 and a size of 1.6 x 3.7 cm^2. The beam particle trajectories and their momenta were measured with a scintillating fibre hodoscope in the beam channel and a silicon microstrip detector at the exit of the channel. A fast transition radiation detector was used to identify the pion component of the beam.
In view of a possible evolution of the CERN accelerator complex towards higher proton intensities, a 2.2 GeV H- linac with 4 MW beam power has been designed, for use in connection with an accumulator and compressor ring as proton driver of a muon-based Neutrino Factory. The high-energy part of this linac can use most of the RF equipment (superconducting cavities and klystrons) from the LEP collider after its decommissioning at the end of 2000. Recent results concerning low-beta superconducting cavities are presented, and the main characteristics of the linac design are described. The complete …
As the pre-injector of the LHC injector chain, the proton linac at CERN is required to provide a high-intensity (180mA) beam to the Proton Synchrotron Booster. The results of measurements at this intensity will be presented. Furthermore, the linac is now equipped with bunch shape monitors from INR, Moscow, which have allowed the comparison of the Alvarez tank RF settings with simulations.
A new powerful longitudinal diagnostics is being developed for the two CERN's antiproton machines, the Antiproton Decelerator (AD) and the Extra Low ENergy ANtiproton (ELENA) ring. The longitudinal diagnostics receives data from the Low-Level Radiofrequency (LLRF) system via optical fiber. Real time processing of gigabit data-streams is enabled by its computational resources and real-time operating system. Measurement of intensity, bunch length and turn-by-turn bunch profiles are available for bunched beams. Intensity, momentum spread and average frequency will soon be measured for debunched b…
In the scope of the Physics Beyond Colliders studies, the Gamma-Factory initiative proposes the use of partially stripped ions as a driver of a new type of high-intensity photon source in CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In 2018, the LHC accelerated and stored partially stripped $^{208}\text{Pb}^{81+}$ ions for the first time. The collimation system efficiency recorded during this test was found to be prohibitively low, so that only a very low-intensity beam could be stored without the risk of triggering a beam dump when regular, minor beam losses occur. The worst losses were localised in the…
We discuss the possibility of creating novel research tools by producing and storing highly relativistic beams of highly ionised atoms in the CERN accelerator complex, and by exciting their atomic degrees of freedom with lasers to produce high-energy photon beams. Intensity of such photon beams would be by several orders of magnitude higher than offered by the presently operating light sources, in the particularly interesting gamma-ray energy domain of 0.1-400 MeV. In this energy range, the high-intensity photon beams can be used to produce secondary beams of polarised electrons, polarised pos…
CERN has launched a study phase to evaluate the feasibility of a new high-intensity beam dump facility at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron accelerator with the primary goal of exploring Hidden Sector models and searching for Light Dark Matter, but which also offers opportunities for other fixed target flavour physics programs such as rare tau lepton decays and tau neutrino studies. The new facility will require - among other infrastructure - a target complex in which a dense target/dump will be installed, capable of absorbing the entire energy of the beam extracted from the SPS accelerator. I…
The Beam Instrumentation group at CERN has developed a new scintillating fibre beam monitor for the measurement of secondary particle beams in the CERN Experimental Areas. The monitor has a simple design that stands out for its low material budget, vacuum compatibility, good performance, low cost, and ease of production. By using different read-out techniques the monitor can perform several functions, such as measurement of the profile, position and intensity of the beam, momentum spectrometry, generation of fast trigger signals, and measurement of the time-of-flight for particle identificatio…
The HE-LHC study investigates the possibilities for upgrading the beam energy of the Large Hadron Collider CERN from 7 TeV to 16.5 TeV. This paper presents a preliminary investigation of intensity issues and machine protection for the HE-LHC.
Beta Beam,the concept of generating a pure and intense (anti) neutrino beam by letting accelerated radioactive ions beta decay in a storage ring, called Decay Ring (DR), is the base of one of the proposed next generation neutrino oscillation facilities, necessary for a complete study of the neutrino oscillation parameter space. Sensitivities of the unknown neutrino oscillation parameters depend on the Decay Ring's ion intensity and of it's duty factor (the filled ratio of the ring). Therefore efficient ion production, stripping, bunching, acceleration and storing are crucial sub-projects under…
This year, 2015, marks the centenary of the publication of Einsteins Theory of General Relativity and it has been named the International Year of Light and light-based technologies by the UN General Assembly. It is thus timely to discuss the possibility of broadening the present CERN research program by including a new component based on a novel concept of the light source which could pave a way towards a multipurpose Gamma Factory. The proposed light source could be realized at CERN by using the infrastructure of the existing accelerators. It could push the intensity limits of the presently o…
Beam collisions with a crossing angle at the interaction point have been applied in high intensity colliders to reduce the effects of parasitic collisions which induce emittance growth and beam lifetime deterioration. The crossing angle causes the geometrical reduction of the luminosity. Crab cavity can be one of the most promising ways to compensate the crossing angle and to realize effective head-on collisions. Moreover, the crab crossing mitigates the synchro-betatron resonances due to the crossing angle. Crab cavity experiment in SPS is proposed for deciding on a full crab-cavity implement…
We present an optimization of the hadron focusing system for a low-energy high-intensity conventional neutrino beam (Super-Beam) proposed on the basis of the HP-SPL at CERN with a beam power of 4 MW and an energy of 4.5 GeV. The far detector would be a 440 kton Water Cherenkov detector (MEMPHYS) located at a baseline of 130 km in the Fréjus site. The neutrino fluxes simulation relies on a new GEANT4 based simulation coupled with an optimization algorithm based on the maximization of the sensitivity limit on the $θ_{13}$ mixing angle. A new configuration adopting a multiple horn system with sol…
NA60+ is a fixed target experiment proposed in the framework of the Physics Beyond Colliders programme at CERN. It aims to precisely measure the hard and electromagnetic probes in nuclear collisions. Initially proposed for the underground cavern ECN3 with very high beam intensities, the experiment now foresees a location in the EHN1 surface hall which was shown to have a limited impact on the physics performance in spite of a significant reduction of beam intensity and detector size. The potential installation and operation of the experiment with the ion beams from the Super Proton Synchrotron…
The upgrade of the normal conducting (NC) Radioactive Ion Beam EXperiment (REX)-ISOLDE heavy ion accelerator at CERN, under the High Intensity and Energy (HIE)-ISOLDE framework, proposes the use of superconducting (SC) quarter-wave resonators (QWRs) to increase the energy capability of the facility from 3 MeV/u to beyond 10 MeV/u. A beam dynamics study of a lattice design comprising SC QWRs and SC solenoids has confirmed the design's ability to accelerate ions, with a mass-to-charge ratio in the range 2.5 < A/q < 4.5, to the target energy with a minimal emittance increase. We report on the dev…
The superconducting (SC) High Intensity and Energy (HIE) ISOLDE linac will replace most of the existing accelerating infrastructure of the Radioactive ion beam EXperiment (REX) at CERN, however, the 101.28 MHz RFQ and 5 MV IH cavity will remain in the role of injector for the upgrade, boosting the beam up to an energy of 1.2 MeV/u. We present the results of a beam dynamics investigation of the injector focused most critically on matching the longitudinal beam parameters from the RFQ to the SC machine, which is complicated largely by the IH cavity employing a Combined Zero Degree (KONUS) beam d…
Crossing a horizontal nonlinear resonance is the approach that can be used to split a beam in several beamlets with the goal to perform multi-turn extraction from a circular particle accelerator. Such an approach has been successfully implemented in the CERN Proton Synchrotron and is used routinely for the production of high-intensity proton beams for fixed-target physics at the Super Proton Synchrotron. Recently, thanks to the deployment of diamond detectors, originally installed to monitor the beam losses at extraction, it has been possible to measure the horizontal beam emittance of the spl…
Space charge is typically one of the performance limitations for the operation of high intensity and high brightness beams in circular accelerators. In the Proton Synchrotron (PS) at CERN, losses are observed for vertical tunes above $Q_y=6.25$, especially for beams with large space charge tune shift. The work presented here shows that this behaviour is associated to structure resonances excited by space charge due to the highly symmetric accelerator lattice of the PS, typical for first generation alternating gradient synchrotrons. Experimental studies demonstrate the dependency of the losses …
To further study neutrino oscillation properties a Beta Beam facility has been proposed. Beta decaying ions with high kinetic energy are stored in a storage ring ("Decay Ring") with straight sections to create pure focused (anti) electron neutrino beams. However to reach high sensitivity to neutrino oscillation parameters in the experiment the bunched beam intensity and duty cycle in the DR have to be optimized. The first CERN-based scenario, using 6He and 18Ne as neutrino sources, has been studied using a bunch merging RF scheme. Two RF cavities at different frequencies are used to capture ne…
The HIE-ISOLDE project represents a major upgrade of the ISOLDE nuclear facility with a mandate to significantly improve the quality and increase the intensity and energy of radioactive nuclear beams produced at CERN. The project will expand the experimental nuclear physics programme at ISOLDE by focusing on an upgrade of the existing Radioactive ion beam EXperiment (REX) linac with a 40 MV superconducting linac comprising thirty-two niobium-on-copper sputter-coated quarter-wave resonators housed in six cryomodules. The new linac will raise the energy of post-accelerated beams from 3 MeV/u to …
Massive neutrinos reveal physics beyond the Standard Model, which could have deep consequences for our understanding of the Universe. Their study should therefore receive the highest level of priority in the European Strategy. The discovery and study of leptonic CP violation and precision studies of the transitions between neutrino flavours require high intensity, high precision, long baseline accelerator neutrino experiments. The community of European neutrino physicists involved in oscillation experiments is strong enough to support a major neutrino long baseline project in Europe, and has a…
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) machine at CERN was designed and built primarily to find or exclude the existence of the Higgs boson, for which a large amount of data is needed by the LHC experiments. This requires operation at high luminosity, which in turn requires running with thousands of high-intensity proton bunches in the machine. After quantifying the data required by the experiments and elucidating the LHC parameters needed to achieve this, this paper explains how the LHC beams are fabricated from the pulse(s) coming from the CERN Duoplasmatron source.
New collimators are being produced at CERN in the framework of a large particle accelerator upgrade project to protect beam lines against stray particles. Their movable jaws hold low density absorbers with tight geometric requirements, while being able to withstand direct proton beam impacts. Such events induce considerable thermo-mechanical loads, leading to complex structural responses, which make the numerical analysis challenging. Hence, an experiment has been developed to validate the jaw design under representative conditions and to acquire online results to enhance the numerical models.…
Experimental results and simulation models show that crystals might play a relevant role for the development of new generations of high-energy and high-intensity particle accelerators and might disclose innovative possibilities at existing ones. In this paper we describe the most advanced manufacturing techniques of crystals suitable for operations at ultra-high energy and ultra-high intensity particle accelerators, reporting as an example of potential applications the collimation of the particle beams circulating in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which will be upgraded through the additio…
Beam Intercepting Devices (BIDs) are essential protection elements for the operation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) complex. The LHC internal beam dump (LHC Target Dump Injection or LHC TDI) is the main protection BID of the LHC injection system; its main function is to protect LHC equipment in the event of a malfunction of the injection kicker magnets during beam transfer from the SPS to the LHC. Several issues with the TDI were encountered during LHC operation, most of them due to outgassing from its core components induced by electron cloud effects, which led to limitations of the injec…
Spectra of K0S mesons and Lambda hyperons were measured in p+C interactions at 31 GeV/c with the large acceptance NA61/SHINE spectrometer at the CERN SPS. The data were collected with an isotropic graphite target with a thickness of 4% of a nuclear interaction length. Interaction cross sections, charged pion spectra, and charged kaon spectra were previously measured using the same data set. Results on K0S and Lambda production in p+C interactions serve as reference for the understanding of the enhancement of strangeness production in nucleus-nucleus collisions. Moreover, they provide important…
The interaction of dust particles with the LHC proton beams accounts for a major fraction of irregular beam loss events observed in LHC physics operation. The events cease after a few beam revolutions because of the expulsion of dust particles from the beam once they become ionized in the transverse beam tails. Despite the transient nature of these events, the resulting beam losses can trigger beam aborts or provoke quenches of superconducting magnets. In this paper, we study the characteristics of beam-dust particle interactions in the cryogenic arcs by reconstructing key observables like nuc…
For the future intensity increase of the fixed-target beams in the CERN accelerator complex, a barrier-bucket scheme has been developed to reduce the beam loss during the 5-turn extraction from the PS towards the SPS, the so-called Multi-Turn Extraction. The low-level RF system must synchronise the barrier phase with the PS extraction and SPS injection kickers to minimise the number of particles lost during the rise times of their fields. As the RF voltage of the wide-band cavity generating the barrier bucket would be too low for a conventional synchronisation, a combination of a feedforward c…
The potential of muon beams for high energy physics applications is described along with the challenges of producing high quality muon beams. Two proposed approaches for delivering high intensity muon beams, a proton driver source and a positron driver source, are described and compared. The proton driver concepts are based on the studies from the Muon Accelerator Program (MAP). The MAP effort focused on a path to deliver muon-based facilities, ranging from neutrino factories to muon colliders, that could span research needs at both the intensity and energy frontiers. The Low EMittance Muon Ac…
The recent experimental determinations of a large theta_13 angle have opened the way to a determination of the mass hierarchy and of the CP-violating phase. Experiments based on horn produced (anti-)neutrino conventional beams are presently under development. The event rates are marginal for a definitive search, since they require very intense beams and extremely large detector masses. Zucchelli has proposed a method in which pure (anti-)nu_e beams are generated by the beta-decay of relativistic radio-nuclides stored in a high energy storage ring pointing towards a far away neutrino detector. …
This report overviews studies accomplished in the U70 proton synchrotron of IHEP-Protvino during the recent two decades. Major attention is paid to a routine application of bent crystals for beam extraction from the machine. It has been confirmed experimentally that efficiency of beam extraction with a crystal deflector of around 85% is well feasible for a proton beam with intensity up to 1012 protons per cycle. Another trend is to use bent crystals for halo collimation in a high energy collider. New promising options emerge for, say, LHC and ILC based on the "volume reflection" effect, which …
An investigation on the mechanism of relaxation of axially confined 400 GeV/c protons to planar channeling in a bent crystal was carried out at the extracted line H8 from CERN Super Proton Synchrotron. The experimental results were critically compared to computer simulations, showing a good agreement. We firmly individuated a necessary condition for the exploitation of axial confinement or its relaxation for particle beam manipulation in high-energy accelerators. We demonstrated that with a short bent crystal, aligned with one of its main axis to the beam direction, it is possible to realize e…
