• C.R. Prior
  STFC/RAL/ASTeC, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon

The goal of a Neutrino Factory is to generate intense beams of neutrinos from muon decay inorder to study CP violation in the Standard Model, the mass hierarchy, and the neutrino mixing angle θ₁₃. Intense muon beams are created and accelerated in a system of particle accelerators to energies of 20-50 GeV. They are then allowed to decay in dedicated storage rings with long straight sections aligned on suitably chosen long-range detectors. A variety of geometries are possible, and their design and construction present demanding challenges for accelerator R & D, covering not only beam optics but touching on geological and engineering aspects of constructing almost vertical storage rings several hundred metres below the Earth's surface. The basic ideas are described in this paper and are demonstrated by three possible models developed in recent years.