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

Funding: Science and Technology Facilities Council (United Kingdom)

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 a 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 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). Measurements of the surface velocity of the wire using a laser interferometry system (VISAR) are in progress, which, combined with LS-DYNA modelling, will allow the evaluation of the constitutive equations of the material. An account is given of the optimisation of secondary pion production and capture in a Neutrino Factory and of the latest solid target engineering ideas.

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

Using an FFAG for rapid-cycling proton acceleration has the advantage that the acceleration cycle is no longer subject to constraints from the main magnet power supply used in an RCS. The RF can be used to its maximum potential to increase the energy range in a short 50Hz cycle as proposed for multi-MW proton driver projects. The challenge becomes an optical one of maintaining a stable lattice across a wide range of beam momenta without magnet sizes or the ring circumference making the machine prohibitively expensive for its purpose. Investigations of stable energy ranges for proton FFAG lattices in the few GeV regime (relativistic but not ultra-relativistic) are presented here.