• S.J. Brooks
  STFC/RAL/ASTeC, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon

The neutrino factory requires a source of pions within a momentum window determined by the ‘muon front end' accelerator structure downstream. The technique of finding which parts of a large target block are net absorbers or emitters of particles may be adapted with this momentum window in mind. Therefore, analysis of a hadronic production simulation run using MARS15 can provide a candidate target shape in a single pass. However, changing the shape of the material also affects the absorption/emission balance, so this paper investigates iterative schemes to find a self-consistent optimal, or near-optimal, target geometry.

• T.R. Edgecock
  STFC/RAL, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon
• J.J. Back
  University of Warwick, Coventry
• J.R.J. Bennett
  STFC/RAL/ISIS, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon
• C.N. Booth, G.P. Skoro
  Sheffield University, Sheffield
• S.J. Brooks
  STFC/RAL/ASTeC, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon

The UK programme of high power target developments for a Neutrino Factory is centred on the study of high-Z materials (tungsten, tantalum). A description of lifetime shock tests on candidate materials is given as part of the research into a solid target solution. A fast high current pulse is applied to a thin wire of the sample material and the lifetime measured from the number of pulses before failure. These measurements are made at temperatures up to ~2000 K. The stress on the wire is calculated using the LS-DYNA code and compared to the stress expected in the real Neutrino Factory target. It has been found that tantalum is too weak to sustain prolonged stress at these temperatures but a tungsten wire has reached over 26 million pulses (equivalent to more than ten years of operation at the Neutrino Factory). An account is given of the optimisation of secondary pion production from the target and the issues related to mounting the target in the muon capture solenoid and target station are discussed.