Programmes
Neutrino Factory
The Neutrino Factory is a complex of particle accelerators designed to produce intense, focussed beams of neutrinos for research in particle physics. The neutrino beams pass through the Earth and are intense enough to allow high detection rates at distances as great as 7,000 km. Work within ASTeC has placed the UK at the forefront of Neutrino Factory research worldwide. Building on experience with high power proton accelerators, ASTeC in collaboration with UK universities has promoted studies of targets, muon cooling, and muon acceleration using a new type of machine called a non-scaling FFAG. A self-consistent, viable proposal is planned for publication in 2012. The facility could be built in stages: for example, incrementally upgrading the ISIS accelerator at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) so as to support neutrino research and at the same time enhance neutron and muon science. The Neutrino Factory itself can be upgraded to a high-energy machine known as the muon collider, going a stage beyond CERN's LHC and extending research opportunities across the whole of particle physics.
Contact: Chris Prior
31 August 2010