Muon Cooling R&D for a Neutrino Factory and Muon Collider

介子冷却R

• 批准号: 0757938
• 负责人: Donald Summers
• 金额: $ 30万
• 依托单位: University of Mississippi
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-08-15 至 2012-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0757938&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Muon; Cooling; R&D; Neutrino; Factory

The University of Mississippi group is part of an international collaboration developing the techniques for muon ionization cooling?a critical step toward the construction of a muon collider or neutrino factory. This award is to provide support for the only postdoc to be engaged in this research effort towards the development, testing and confirmation of the techniques.The intellectual merit of this award is the development of a key technology, muon ionization cooling, for creating neutrino beams to explore neutrino oscillations and a muon collider to explore the energy frontier at 1.5 TeV or higher. The immediate goal is to investigate the operation of a 201 MHz radio frequency (RF) cavity in a high magnetic field at Fermilab in the MuCool Test Area. RF power and liquid helium are available there now and a 400 MeV proton beam is coming. The intent is to learn how to run a large RF cavity in a magnetic field while avoiding electrical breakdown. A cavity of this frequency is big enough to accept a large fraction of the muons coming from a primary proton target via pion decay. The RF cavities must be able to operate in magnetic fields, which is key both for neutrino factories and muon colliders. The group will also simulate muon cooling with an inverse cyclotron and to commission two high density aerogel (n=1.07 and 1.12) Cherenkov pi/ì discrimination detectors for the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) at the Rutherford Lab in the United Kingdom. The broader impacts of this award are as follows. Mississippi students and QuarkNet teachers will be involved and will use acoustic sensors to locate and characterize sparking (electrical breakdown) in the RF cavity. Development of muon cooling could lead to building a neutrino factory, discovering CP violation in the lepton sector, and explaining the baryon-antibaryon asymmetry in the universe. A neutrino beam from a Neutrino Factory might be aimed at a detector in the NSF?s Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL) at Homestake. This would give the United States a first rate physics project not only for understanding the universe, but also for training students.

密西西比大学小组是国际合作开发μ子电离冷却技术的一部分？建造μ子对撞机或中微子工厂的关键一步。该奖项旨在支持唯一一位从事这项研究工作的博士后，以开发、测试和确认技术。该奖项的智力价值是开发一项关键技术，即μ子电离冷却，用于产生中微子束以探索中微子振荡，以及μ子对撞机，以探索1.5 TeV或更高的能量前沿。当前的目标是研究在MuCool测试区的费米实验室的高磁场中201 MHz射频（RF）腔的操作。 那里现在有射频功率和液氦，400兆电子伏的质子束即将到来。 目的是学习如何在磁场中运行大型RF腔，同时避免电击穿。这种频率的腔足够大，可以接受大部分通过π介子衰变来自初级质子靶的μ子。射频腔必须能够在磁场中工作，这对中微子工厂和μ子对撞机都很关键。该小组还将用逆回旋加速器模拟μ子冷却，并为英国卢瑟福实验室的μ子电离冷却实验（MICE）委托两个高密度气凝胶（n=1.07和1.12）切伦科夫π/π鉴别探测器。该奖项的广泛影响如下。密西西比的学生和QuarkNet教师将参与其中，并将使用声学传感器来定位和表征射频腔中的火花（电击穿）。μ子冷却的发展可能导致建造中微子工厂，发现轻子扇区中的CP破坏，并解释宇宙中的重子-反重子不对称性。来自中微子工厂的中微子束可能瞄准NSF的探测器？深地下科学与工程实验室（DUSEL）。这将使美国成为一个一流的物理项目，不仅是为了了解宇宙，而且也是为了培养学生。