Muon Accelerator Program (MAP)

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Design & Simulations

Simulation results for the expected performance of the front-end of a Muon Collider or Neutrino Factory. The front-end, which is about 200m long, consists of a section in which the muons drift, followed by sections in which they are captured in bunches, have their energy spreads reduced, and are then "cooled" to produce a bright beam that fits within an accelerator. The blue curve shows how the number that fit increases as the muons travel down the channel. The red curve shows how the beam size (transverse emittance) decreases as the muons are cooled.

Before a Muon Collider or a Neutrino Factory can be built, these new types of accelerator facility must be designed, and the designs simulated to assess and optimize their performance. The design process begins with initial concepts of what might work, followed by increasingly sophisticated simulations to sort out what will work, how well it will work, and what sort of performance will be required for the constituent components. Muon Colliders and Neutrino Factories are ambitious new facilities, and in designing them many new concepts must be invented, and technology must be pushed beyond the present state-of-art.

The design and simulation process begins by focusing independently on the big subsystems: The front-end proton accelerator, the proton target and pion collection system, the muon beam forming systems, the muon cooling channel, the acceleration system, and the muon storage ring. Ultimately these subsystems must be fit together, with an end-to-end simulation of the entire system. Poorly performing or cost ineffective parts of the overall design can then be identified and improved upon.