Project Manager Funding: Mice Ionization Cooling Demonstration.
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Strathclyde
Department Name: Physics
Abstract
The Neutrino Factory is a possible future accelerator facility that creates beams of neutrinos from the decays of muons in a storage ring. The neutrino beams from a Neutrino Factory would have the highest intensity and can be controlled with unprecedented accuracy. For these reasons, the Neutrino Factory has the potential to discover measurable differences between neutrino and antineutrino oscillations, which could be the key to understanding the puzzle of the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe. This phenomenon, known as CP violation, has been observed in the quark sector but has never been seen in the neutrino sector. A future Neutrino Factory would determine CP violation in the neutrino sector with the best possible accuracy. Furthermore, a Neutrino factory could be used as a first stage before the construction of a Muon Collider, which could be used to measure the properties of the Higgs boson with the ultimate precision, and could potentially reach energies of up to 6 TeV, in order to explore new physics phenomena at the highest energy frontier.
Both the Neutrino Factory and a Muon Collider rely on the acceleration of muons. To be able to create muon accelerator facilities, we require to reduce the size of the muon beam so that it may be accelerated. Since muons decay within 2 microseconds in their own rest frame, the only known way to reduce the phase space of the muon beam before the muons decay is to use the concept of ionisation cooling, in which the muons lose energy in an absorber such as liquid hydrogen or lithium hydride (LiH) and then recover the longitudinal component of the momentum by accelerating them using RF cavities. The international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) is an engineering demonstration of the concept of ionisation cooling. This experiment is being built at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, in which a beam of muons will be cooled in a muon cooling cell consisting of three absorbers and two RF cavities inside the field of two focus coil magnets. The emittance of the beam is measured before and after the cooling channel using a scintillating fibre tracker inside a superconducting solenoid, and the muons are identified using time-of-flight detectors, a Cherenkov detector and a calorimeter system consisting of a scintillating fibre-lead pre-shower detector (named the KL) and a totally active scintillating detector, called the Electron Muon Ranger (EMR).
We aim to perform measurements of emittance reduction, without RF cavities (MICE step IV) and perform the final demonstration of ionisation cooling with RF cavities.
This proposal is a bid to provide bridging funds for 10 months salary for Dr Colin Whyte. The Bridging funds are required to cover the period between the end of funds for Dr Whyte from the Strathclyde MICE grant and the start of the Cost to Completion Funding, Jan 2017.
Both the Neutrino Factory and a Muon Collider rely on the acceleration of muons. To be able to create muon accelerator facilities, we require to reduce the size of the muon beam so that it may be accelerated. Since muons decay within 2 microseconds in their own rest frame, the only known way to reduce the phase space of the muon beam before the muons decay is to use the concept of ionisation cooling, in which the muons lose energy in an absorber such as liquid hydrogen or lithium hydride (LiH) and then recover the longitudinal component of the momentum by accelerating them using RF cavities. The international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) is an engineering demonstration of the concept of ionisation cooling. This experiment is being built at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, in which a beam of muons will be cooled in a muon cooling cell consisting of three absorbers and two RF cavities inside the field of two focus coil magnets. The emittance of the beam is measured before and after the cooling channel using a scintillating fibre tracker inside a superconducting solenoid, and the muons are identified using time-of-flight detectors, a Cherenkov detector and a calorimeter system consisting of a scintillating fibre-lead pre-shower detector (named the KL) and a totally active scintillating detector, called the Electron Muon Ranger (EMR).
We aim to perform measurements of emittance reduction, without RF cavities (MICE step IV) and perform the final demonstration of ionisation cooling with RF cavities.
This proposal is a bid to provide bridging funds for 10 months salary for Dr Colin Whyte. The Bridging funds are required to cover the period between the end of funds for Dr Whyte from the Strathclyde MICE grant and the start of the Cost to Completion Funding, Jan 2017.
Planned Impact
1) The main impact of the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) is its contribution to the worldwide Accelerator R&D programme. Techniques developed in MICE are essential for future high power proton facilities including the Neutrino Factory and the Muon Collider. These will benefit the worldwide accelerator industry, including the development of future RF cavities that can operate inside magnetic fields, the development of large superconducting technology that may be realised in a simpler and more cost-effective way, and the development of innovative instrumentation to operate at such facilities.
2) The training of accelerator physicists and engineers underpins the increasing use of accelerators in research and industry, including such disparate areas as medical treatment and diagnosis, security applications and power generation. MICE has trained over 67 STFC and university staff and students, including 22 PhD students (12 have graduated and are deploying their skills in industry, such as IT consultancy, the financial sector, IBM and defence industries), 16 post-doctoral and contract staff and 11 faculty (8 PDRA staff trained on the project have taken their expertise to other projects or to private industry). MICE has developed UK expertise in running a major project in the UK, with 4 STFC and 7 university staff playing senior roles in the project leadership. The expertise in university and STFC staff developed include: low frequency RF for future accelerators, large superconducting solenoids, novel liquid hydrogen handling systems and accelerator instrumentation.
3) The MICE project will benefit the following collaborations: the international MICE collaboration encompassing 34 institutions in 8 countries; the International Design Study for a Neutrino Factory (IDS-NF), (https://www.ids- nf.org/wiki/FrontPage) and the EC-funded EUROnu project (http://www.euronu.org/), the nuSTORM collaboration (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.0294v1.pdf) and the 'Proton Accelerators for Science and Innovation' (PASI) collaboration, (http://pasi.org.uk/Main_Page).
4) The MICE project is benefiting UK and international industry through engineering and construction partnerships: cryogenic engineering (AS Scientific), collaborative development of unusually large superconducting magnets with closed- circuit cooling with TESLA engineering (UK) and Wang NMR (USA), knowledge exchange in the development of the MICE target with TechVac, Multigrind Watford, ExcelPrecision and CCFE-Babcock, and knowledge exchange with UK industry in the manufacture of RF amplifier components, HT safety systems, high power, high frequency electrical contacts and specialist plating and joining methods.
5) The MICE project is active in the dissemination of its activities, with refereed journal and conference publications, a freely accessible archive record (http://www.mice.iit.edu/), organised outreach activities for school students, participation in the Annual Goldsmiths courses for A-level teachers, participation in the Particle Physics masterclasses, public events, such as the "Accelerator extravaganza" at RAL and the General Public Access Day at RAL (8 July 2015), 15 undergraduate, PGI and summer projects hosted by MICE, publicity through Physics World and the CERN Courier, a prizewinning paper at the "SET for Britain" Meeting in 2009, and other public and media activities.
2) The training of accelerator physicists and engineers underpins the increasing use of accelerators in research and industry, including such disparate areas as medical treatment and diagnosis, security applications and power generation. MICE has trained over 67 STFC and university staff and students, including 22 PhD students (12 have graduated and are deploying their skills in industry, such as IT consultancy, the financial sector, IBM and defence industries), 16 post-doctoral and contract staff and 11 faculty (8 PDRA staff trained on the project have taken their expertise to other projects or to private industry). MICE has developed UK expertise in running a major project in the UK, with 4 STFC and 7 university staff playing senior roles in the project leadership. The expertise in university and STFC staff developed include: low frequency RF for future accelerators, large superconducting solenoids, novel liquid hydrogen handling systems and accelerator instrumentation.
3) The MICE project will benefit the following collaborations: the international MICE collaboration encompassing 34 institutions in 8 countries; the International Design Study for a Neutrino Factory (IDS-NF), (https://www.ids- nf.org/wiki/FrontPage) and the EC-funded EUROnu project (http://www.euronu.org/), the nuSTORM collaboration (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.0294v1.pdf) and the 'Proton Accelerators for Science and Innovation' (PASI) collaboration, (http://pasi.org.uk/Main_Page).
4) The MICE project is benefiting UK and international industry through engineering and construction partnerships: cryogenic engineering (AS Scientific), collaborative development of unusually large superconducting magnets with closed- circuit cooling with TESLA engineering (UK) and Wang NMR (USA), knowledge exchange in the development of the MICE target with TechVac, Multigrind Watford, ExcelPrecision and CCFE-Babcock, and knowledge exchange with UK industry in the manufacture of RF amplifier components, HT safety systems, high power, high frequency electrical contacts and specialist plating and joining methods.
5) The MICE project is active in the dissemination of its activities, with refereed journal and conference publications, a freely accessible archive record (http://www.mice.iit.edu/), organised outreach activities for school students, participation in the Annual Goldsmiths courses for A-level teachers, participation in the Particle Physics masterclasses, public events, such as the "Accelerator extravaganza" at RAL and the General Public Access Day at RAL (8 July 2015), 15 undergraduate, PGI and summer projects hosted by MICE, publicity through Physics World and the CERN Courier, a prizewinning paper at the "SET for Britain" Meeting in 2009, and other public and media activities.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
Colin Whyte (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Mohayai T
(2017)
The MICE Demonstration of Muon Ionization Cooling
Lagrange J.-B.
(2016)
The MICE demonstration of muon ionization cooling
in IPAC 2016 - Proceedings of the 7th International Particle Accelerator Conference
Bayliss V
(2019)
The liquid-hydrogen absorber for MICE
in IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering
Bayliss V
(2018)
The liquid-hydrogen absorber for MICE
in Journal of Instrumentation
Ronald K
(2017)
RF system for the MICE demonstration of ionisation cooling
Ronald K
(2017)
RF system for the MICE demonstration of ionisation cooling
Adams D
(2016)
Pion contamination in the MICE muon beam
in Journal of Instrumentation
Bogomilov M
(2022)
Multiple Coulomb scattering of muons in lithium hydride
in Physical Review D
Drielsma F
(2018)
Measurement of Phase Space Density Evolution in MICE
Whyte C.
(2017)
Layout of the mice demonstration of muon ionization cooling
in Proceedings of Science
Whyte C
(2018)
Layout of the MICE Demonstration of Muon Ionization Cooling
Bogomilov M
(2017)
Lattice design and expected performance of the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment demonstration of ionization cooling
in Physical Review Accelerators and Beams
Adams D
(2019)
First particle-by-particle measurement of emittance in the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment
in The European Physical Journal C
G.T. Chatzitheodoridis
(2021)
Field-Off Multiple Coulomb Scattering in the MICE Liquid Hydrogen Absorber
Blackmore V
(2017)
Emittance Measurement in the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment
Blackmore V.J.
(2016)
Emittance measurement in the muon ionization cooling experiment
in Proceedings of Science
MICE Collaboration
(2020)
Demonstration of cooling by the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment.
in Nature
G.T. Chatzitheodoridis
(2021)
Analysis of Multiple Coulomb Scattering of Muons in the MICE Liquid H2 Absorber
G.T. Chatzitheodoridis
(2021)
Analysis of Multiple Coulomb Scattering of Muons in the MICE Liquid H2 Absorber
Description | First demonstration of Muon Ionization Cooling. A key technology essential to the development of future muon accelerators. Improvements to accuracy of Hydrogen and LiH scattering cross sections |
Exploitation Route | Future Muon colliders. Improvement to accuracy of scattering cross sections used in 'Geant' code - a key simulation tool used by many HEP researchers |
Sectors | Energy |
Description | RF Accelerator Material in L5 Instructional Class |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
Impact | Students will have been informed of aspects of RF accelerator technology on completion of studies, informed by the research on the MICE project. This specifically relates to PGT courses. RF technology is regularly indicated as being a significant skills shortage in a international context (both for accelerator science and in a wider scope). |
Description | Continuation of UK participation in the International Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment - Bridging Funds |
Amount | £69,769 (GBP) |
Funding ID | ST/N003403/1 |
Organisation | Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 04/2016 |
End | 12/2016 |
Description | MICE Ionization-Cooling Demonstration |
Amount | £373,578 (GBP) |
Funding ID | ST/P001114/1 |
Organisation | Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 01/2017 |
End | 06/2020 |
Title | MICE Raw Data |
Description | Raw data obtained by the International Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment (MICE) experiment |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2016 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Papers on phase space control of muon beams |
URL | https://figshare.com/articles/MICE_Raw_Data/3179644 |
Title | MICE Recon Data |
Description | Reconstructed data produced by the International Muon Ionisation Experiment |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2018 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Papers on emittance control of beams of energetic muons by ionisation cooling |
URL | https://figshare.com/articles/_/5955850 |
Title | MICE Simulation Data |
Description | Simulations of ionisation cooling associated with the MICE project |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2018 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Data supporting papers of muon cooling and emittance control through interaction with low-Z absorbers |
URL | https://figshare.com/articles/_/5972329 |
Description | First Ever Ionization Cooling Demonstration in MICE |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Poster paper at Neutrino 2018 - XXVIII International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | https://zenodo.org/record/1300586 |
Description | MICE Collaboration Meetings |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Typically participation in international MICE collaboration meetings (three per annum), locations spanning UK, US, Europe. In addition participation in several programme review meetings (typically two per annum) on the management of the research programme, plus engaging in focussed scientific and technical advisory review bodies. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2012,2013,2014,2015,2016,2017,2018,2019,2020 |
URL | http://www.mice.iit.edu |
Description | Public Lecture Rutherford Appleton Lab - Muons |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Open day - afternoon lecture series and Experiment tour. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
Description | Recent results from MICE on multiple Coulomb scattering and energy loss |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Poster paper at XXVIII International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | https://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/nu2018/speakers |
Description | School poster competition |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Schools |
Results and Impact | School poster competition to design 'mural' for MICE Hall |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |