S. Gilardoni

Large-angle production of charged pions with 3-12.9 GeV/c incident protons on nuclear targets

M.G. Catanesi, E. Radicioni, R. Edgecock, M. Ellis, ∗ F.J.P. Soler, C. Gößling, S. Bunyatov, A. Krasnoperov, B. Popov, † V. Serdiouk, V. Tereschenko, E. Di Capua, G. Vidal–Sitjes, ‡ A. Artamonov, § S. Giani, S. Gilardoni, P. Gorbunov, § A. Grant, A. Grossheim, ¶ A. Ivanchenko, ∗∗ V. Ivanchenko, †† A. Kayis-Topaksu, ‡‡ J. Panman, I. Papadopoulos, E. Tcherniaev, I. Tsukerman, § R. Veenhof, C. Wiebusch, §§ P. Zucchelli, ¶¶ A. Blondel, S. Borghi, M.C. Morone, ∗∗∗ G. Prior, † † † R. Schroeter, C. Meurer, U. Gastaldi, G. B. Mills, ‡ ‡ ‡ J.S. Graulich, §§§ G. Grégoire, M. Bonesini, ¶¶¶ F. Ferri, M. Kirsanov, A. Bagulya, V. Grichine, N. Polukhina, V. Palladino, L. Coney, ‡ ‡ ‡ D. Schmitz, ‡ ‡ ‡ G. Barr, A. De Santo, F. Bobisut, D. Gibin, A. Guglielmi, M. Mezzetto, J. Dumarchez, U. Dore, D. Orestano, F. Pastore, A. Tonazzo, L. Tortora, C. Booth, L. Howlett, G. Skoro, M. Bogomilov, M. Chizhov, D. Kolev, R. Tsenov, S. Piperov, P. Temnikov, M. Apollonio, P. Chimenti, G. Giannini, J. Burguet–Castell, A. Cervera–Villanueva, J.J. Gómez–Cadenas, J. Mart́ın–Albo, P. Novella, M. Sorel, and A. Tornero (HARP Collaboration)

THE STUDY OF A EUROPEAN NEUTRINO FACTORY COMPLEX

The Neutrino Factory is a new concept for an accelerator that produces a high-intensity, high-energy beam of electron and muon neutrinos – the ultimate tool for neutrino oscillation studies and the only machine conceived up today that could help detect CP violation of leptons. The basic concept of the Neutrino Factory is the production of neutrinos from the decay of high-energy muons. Due to their short lifetime, these muons have to be accelerated very fast. Several new accelerator techniques, like a high-intenstiy proton linac, high-power targets, ionization cooling or recirculating muon linacs are required. This paper presents a snapshot of the accelerator design at CERN. Although some aspects of this European Neutrino Factory Scheme have been optimised for the CERN site, the basic principle is siteindependent.

Beam losses from ultra-peripheral nuclear collisions between 208Pb82+ ions in the Large Hadron Collider and their alleviation

Electromagnetic interactions between colliding heavy ions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will give rise to localized beam losses that may quench superconducting magnets, apart from contributing significantly to the luminosity decay. To quantify their impact on the operation of the collider, we have used a three-step simulation approach, which consists of optical tracking, a Monte-Carlo shower simulation and a thermal network model of the heat flow inside a magnet. We present simulation results for the case of {sup 208}Pb{sup 82+} ion operation in the LHC, with focus on the ALICE interaction region, and show that the expected heat load during nominal {sup 208}Pb{sup 82+} operation is 40% above the quench level. This limits the maximum achievable luminosity. Furthermore, we discuss methods of monitoring the losses and possible ways to alleviate their effect.

Measurement of the production cross-sections of pi(+/-) in p-C and pi(+/-)-C interactions at 12 GeV/c

The results of the measurements of the double-differential production cross-sections of pions, dσ/dpdΩ, in p-C and π-C interactions using the forward spectrometer of the HARP experiment are presented. The incident particles are 12 GeV/c protons and charged pions directed onto a carbon target with a thickness of 5% of a nuclear interaction length. For p-C interactions the analysis is performed using 100 035 reconstructed secondary tracks, while the corresponding numbers of tracks for π-C and π-C analyses are 106 534 and 10 122 respectively. Cross-section results are presented in the kinematic range 0.5 GeV/c ≤ pπ < 8 GeV/c and 30 mrad ≤ θπ < 240 mrad in the laboratory frame. The measured cross-sections have a direct impact on the precise calculation of atmospheric neutrino fluxes and on the improved reliability of extensive air shower simulations by reducing the uncertainties of hadronic interaction models in the low energy range. HARP collaboration M.G. Catanesi, E. Radicioni Università degli Studi e Sezione INFN, Bari, Italy R. Edgecock, M. Ellis, S. Robbins, F.J.P. Soler Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, UK C. Gößling Institut für Physik, Universität Dortmund, Germany S. Bunyatov, A. Krasnoperov, B. Popov, V. Tereshchenko Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, JINR Dubna, Russia E. Di Capua, G. Vidal–Sitjes Università degli Studi e Sezione INFN, Ferrara, Italy A. Artamonov, S. Giani, S. Gilardoni, P. Gorbunov, A. Grant, A. Grossheim, P. Gruber, V. Ivanchenko, A. Kayis-Topaksu, J. Panman, I. Papadopoulos, E. Tcherniaev, I. Tsukerman, R. Veenhof, C. Wiebusch, P. Zucchelli CERN, Geneva, Switzerland A. Blondel, S. Borghi, M. Campanelli, M.C. Morone, G. Prior, R. Schroeter Section de Physique, Université de Genève, Switzerland R. Engel, C. Meurer Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Institut für Kernphysik, Karlsruhe, Germany I. Kato University of Kyoto, Japan U. Gastaldi Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro dell’ INFN, Legnaro, Italy G. B. Mills Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, USA J.S. Graulich, G. Grégoire Institut de Physique Nucléaire, UCL, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium M. Bonesini, F. Ferri Università degli Studi e Sezione INFN, Milano, Italy M. Kirsanov Institute for Nuclear Research, Moscow, Russia A. Bagulya, V. Grichine, N. Polukhina P. N. Lebedev Institute of Physics (FIAN), Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia V. Palladino Università “Federico II” e Sezione INFN, Napoli, Italy L. Coney, D. Schmitz Columbia University, New York, USA G. Barr, A. De Santo, C. Pattison, K. Zuber Nuclear and Astrophysics Laboratory, University of Oxford, UK F. Bobisut, D. Gibin, A. Guglielmi, M. Mezzetto Università degli Studi e Sezione INFN, Padova, Italy J. Dumarchez, F. Vannucci LPNHE, Universités de Paris VI et VII, Paris, France U. Dore Università “La Sapienza” e Sezione INFN Roma I, Roma, Italy D. Orestano, F. Pastore, A. Tonazzo, L. Tortora Università degli Studi e Sezione INFN Roma III, Roma, Italy C. Booth, L. Howlett Dept. of Physics, University of Sheffield, UK M. Bogomilov, M. Chizhov, D. Kolev, R. Tsenov Faculty of Physics, St. Kliment Ohridski University, Sofia, Bulgaria S. Piperov, P. Temnikov Institute for Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy, Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria M. Apollonio, P. Chimenti, G. Giannini, G. Santin Università degli Studi e Sezione INFN, Trieste, Italy J. Burguet–Castell, A. Cervera–Villanueva, J.J. Gómez–Cadenas, J. Mart́ın–Albo, P. Novella, M. Sorel Instituto de F́ısica Corpuscular, IFIC, CSIC and Universidad de Valencia, Spain Now at FNAL, Batavia, Illinois, USA. Jointly appointed by Nuclear and Astrophysics Laboratory, University of Oxford, UK. Now at Codian Ltd., Langley, Slough, UK. Now at University of Glasgow, UK. Also supported by LPNHE, Universités de Paris VI et VII, Paris, France. Now at Imperial College, University of London, UK. ITEP, Moscow, Russian Federation. Permanently at Instituto de F́ısica de Cantabria, Univ. de Cantabria, Santander, Spain. Now at SpinX Technologies, Geneva, Switzerland. Now at TRIUMF, Vancouver, Canada. Now at University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. On leave of absence from Ecoanalitica, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia. Now at Çukurova University, Adana, Turkey. Now at III Phys. Inst. B, RWTH Aachen, Aachen, Germany. On leave of absence from INFN, Sezione di Ferrara, Italy. Now at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. Now at Univerity of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy. Now at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA. K2K Collaboration. MiniBooNE Collaboration. Now at Section de Physique, Université de Genève, Switzerland, Switzerland. Now at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. Now at University of Sussex, Brighton, UK. Now at ESA/ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

Large-angle production of charged pions with incident pion beams on nuclear targets

We gratefully acknowledge the help and support of the PS beam staff and of the numerous technical collaborators who contributed to the detector design, construction, commissioning and operation. In particular, we would like to thank G. Barichello, R. Brocard, K. Burin, V. Carassiti, F. Chignoli, D. Conventi, G. Decreuse, M. Delattre, C. Detraz, A. Domeniconi, M. Dwuznik, F. Evangelisti, B. Friend, A. Iaciofano, I. Krasin, D. Lacroix, J.-C. Legrand, M. Lobello, M. Lollo, J. Loquet, F. Marinilli, J. Mulon, L. Musa, R. Nicholson, A. Pepato, P. Petev, X. Pons, I. Rusinov, M. Scandurra, E. Usenko, and R. van der Vlugt, for their support in the construction of the detector. The collaboration acknowledges the major contributions and advice of M. Baldo-Ceolin, L. Linssen, M.T. Muciaccia and A. Pullia during the construction of the experiment. The collaboration is indebted to V. Ableev, P. Arce, F. Bergsma, P. Binko, E. Boter, C. Buttar, M. Calvi, M. Campanelli, C. Cavion, A. Chukanov, A. De Min, M. Doucet, D. Dullmann, R. Engel, V. Ermilova, W. Flegel, P. Gruber, Y. Hayato, P. Hodgson, A. Ichikawa, I. Kato, O. Klimov, T. Kobayashi, D. Kustov, M. Laveder, M. Mass, H. Meinhard, T. Nakaya, K. Nishikawa, M. Paganoni, F. Paleari, M. Pasquali, J. Pasternak, C. Pattison, M. Placentino, S. Robbins, G. Santin, V. Serdiouk, S. Simone, A. Tornero, S. Troquereau, S. Ueda, A. Valassi, F. Vannucci and K. Zuber for their contributions to the experiment and to P. Dini for help in MC production. We acknowledge the contributions of V. Ammosov, G. Chelkov, D. Dedovich, F. Dydak, M. Gostkin, A. Guskov, D. Khartchenko, V. Koreshev, Z. Kroumchtein, I. Nefedov, A. Semak, J. Wotschack, V. Zaets and A. Zhemchugov to the work described in this paper. The experiment was made possible by grants from the Institut Interuniversitaire des Sciences Nucleaires and the Interuniversitair Instituut voor Kernwetenschappen (Belgium), Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia, Grant FPA2003-06921-c02-02 and Generalitat Valenciana, grant GV00-054-1, CERN (Geneva, Switzerland), the German Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (Germany), the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (Italy), INR RAS (Moscow), the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant 08-02-00018) and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (UK). We gratefully acknowledge their support. This work was supported in part by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in the framework of the programme SCOPES - Scientific co-operation between Eastern Europe and Switzerland.

Forward production of charged pions with incident protons on nuclear targets at the CERN Proton Synchrotron

Measurements of the double-differential π production cross-section in the range of momentum 0.5 GeV/c ≤ p ≤ 8.0 GeV/c and angle 0.025 rad ≤ θ ≤ 0.25 rad in collisions of protons on beryllium, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, aluminium, copper, tin, tantalum and lead are presented. The data were taken with the large acceptance HARP detector in the T9 beam line of the CERN PS. Incident particles were identified by an elaborate system of beam detectors. Thin targets of 5% of a nuclear interaction length were used. The tracking and identification of the produced particles were performed using the forward system of the HARP experiment. Results are obtained for the double-differential cross-sections dσ/dpdΩ mainly at four incident proton beam momenta (3 GeV/c, 5 GeV/c, 8 GeV/c and 12 GeV/c). Measurements are compared with the GEANT4 and MARS Monte Carlo generators. A global parametrization is provided as an approximation of all the collected datasets which can serve as a tool for quick yields estimates.

Effects of thermal shocks on the release of radioisotopes and on molten metal target vessels

Abstract The ISOLDE pulsed proton beam peak power amounts to 500 MW during the 2.4 μs proton pulse. The fraction of the proton pulse energy deposited in the target material is at the origin of severe thermal shocks. Quantitative measurement of their effect on the release of radioelements from ISOLDE targets was obtained by comparison of release profiles measured under different proton beam settings. The thermal shock induced in liquids (Pb, Sn, La) lead to mechanical failure of ISOLDE molten metal target vessels. Failure analysis is presented and discussed in the light of the response of mercury samples submitted to the ISOLDE beam and monitored by high-speed optical systems.

Absolute momentum calibration of the HARP TPC

In the HARP experiment the large-angle spectrometer is using a cylindrical TPC as main tracking and particle identification detector. The momentum scale of reconstructed tracks in the TPC is the most important systematic error for the majority of kinematic bins used for the HARP measurements of the double-differential production cross-section of charged pions in proton interactions on nuclear targets at large angle. The HARP TPC operated with a number of hardware shortfalls and operational mistakes. Thus it was important to control and characterize its momentum calibration. While it was not possible to enter a direct particle beam into the sensitive volume of the TPC to calibrate the detector, a set of physical processes and detector properties were exploited to achieve a precise calibration of the apparatus. In the following we recall the main issues concerning the momentum measurement in the HARP TPC, and describe the crosschecks made to validate the momentum scale. As a conclusion, this analysis demonstrates that the measurement of momentum is correct within the published precision of 3%.

Measurements of heavy ion beam losses from collimation

The collimation efficiency for Pb-208(82+) ion beams in the LHC is predicted to be lower than requirements Nuclear fragmentation and electromagnetic dissociation in the primary collimators create fragments with a wide range of Z/A ratios, which are not intercepted by the secondary collimators but lost where the dispersion has grown sufficiently large. In this article we present measurements and simulations of loss patterns generated by a prototype LHC collimator in the CERN SPS. Measurements were performed at two different energies and angles of the collimator. We also compare with proton loss maps and find a qualitative difference between Pb-208(82+) ions and protons, with the maximum loss rate observed at different places in the ring. This behavior was predicted by simulations and provides a valuable benchmark of our understanding of ion beam losses caused by collimation. (Less)

Observations of beam losses due to bound-free pair production in a heavy-ion collider

We report the first observations of beam losses due to bound-free pair production at the interaction point of a heavy-ion collider. This process is expected to be a major luminosity limit for the CERN Large Hadron Collider when it operates with (208)Pb(82+) ions because the localized energy deposition by the lost ions may quench superconducting magnet coils. Measurements were performed at the BNL Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) during operation with 100 GeV/nucleon (63)Cu(29+) ions. At RHIC, the rate, energy and magnetic field are low enough so that magnet quenching is not an issue. The hadronic showers produced when the single-electron ions struck the RHIC beam pipe were observed using an array of photodiodes. The measurement confirms the order of magnitude of the theoretical cross section previously calculated by others.