• H.G. Kirk
  BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York
• J.J. Back
  University of Warwick, Coventry
• C.J. Densham, P. Loveridge
  STFC/RAL, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon
• X.P. Ding
  UCLA, Los Angeles, California
• V.B. Graves
  ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
• F. Ladeinde, Y. Zhan
  SUNY SB, Stony Brook, New York
• K.T. McDonald
  PU, Princeton, New Jersey

We outline a program of engineering design and simulation for a target station and pion production/capture system for a 4-MW proton beam at the front end of a Muon Collider or a Neutrino Factory. The target system consists of a free liquid-metal (nominally mercury) jet immersed in a high-field solenoid magnet capture system that also incorporates the proton beam dump. Topics to be studied include optimization of proton beam and jet target parameters, of the magnetic configuration for capture and subsequent transport of pions and muons, of the beam dump, of the radiation/thermal shielding of the capture magnets, and of the beam windows.

• K.T. McDonald
  PU, Princeton, New Jersey
• J.R.J. Bennett
  STFC/RAL/ASTeC, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon
• O. Caretta, P. Loveridge
  STFC/RAL, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon
• A.J. Carroll, V.B. Graves, P.T. Spampinato
  ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
• I. Efthymiopoulos, F. Haug, J. Lettry, M. Palm, H. Pereira
  CERN, Geneva
• A. Fabich
  EBG MedAustron, Wr. Neustadt
• H.G. Kirk, H. Park, T. Tsang
  BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York
• N.V. Mokhov, S.I. Striganov
  Fermilab, Batavia
• P.H. Titus
  PPPL, Princeton, New Jersey

We report on the analysis of data collected in the MERIT experiment at CERN during the Fall of 2007. These results validate the concept of a free mercury jet inside a high-field solenoid magnet as a target for a pulsed proton beam of 4-MW power, as needed for a future Muon Collider and/or Neutrino Factory.