A Neutrino Factory based on a muon storage ring is the ultimate tool for studies of neutrino

oscillations, including possibly the discovery of leptonic CP violation. It is also the first step

towards a μ+μ– collider. Ionization cooling of muons has never been demonstrated in practise but has been shown by end-to-end simulation and design studies to be an important factor both for the performance and for the cost of a Neutrino Factory. This motivates an international programme of R&D, including an experimental demonstration.

 

The aims of the international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment are:  

• To show that it is possible to design, engineer and build a section of cooling channel

capable of giving the desired performance for a Neutrino Factory;

• to place it in a muon beam and measure its performance in various modes of operation and beam conditions, thereby investigating the limits and practicality of cooling.

 

The MICE collaboration has designed an experiment in which a section of an ionization cooling channel is exposed to a muon beam. This cooling channel assembles liquid-hydrogen absorbers providing energy loss and high-gradient radio frequency (RF) cavities to re-accelerate the particles, all tightly contained in a magnetic channel. It reduces the beam transverse emittance by > 10% for muon momenta between 140 and 240 MeV/c. One complete magnetic cell of the cooling channel, comprising three absorber-focus-coil (AFC) modules and two RF-coupling-coil (RFCC) modules is used. Spectrometers placed before and after the cooling section shown, perform the measurements of beam transmission and emittance reduction with an absolute precision of {+-} 0.1%. The detector solenoids each have separate coils (matching coils) to tailor the optics smoothly between the cooling channel and detector modules.