Limitations in the Use of Barrier Buckets in a Beta Beam Decay Ring

Abstract

Beta Beam, the concept of letting accelerated radioactive ions generate a pure and intense (anti‐) neutrino beam by beta decay, is the basis of one of the proposed next generation neutrino oscillation facilities, necessary for a complete study of the neutrino oscillation parameter space. The first CERN based scenario, using 18Ne and 6He as νe and ν̄e emitters respectively, has shown a shortfall in 18Ne production. We have now entered the era of the studies of an alternative CERN based baseline. This alternative investigates how the ions 8B and 8Li can be produced in high quantities in a “Production Ring,” accelerated and then accumulated in a “Decay Ring.” The idea of an alternative RF scheme for the Decay Ring, to use RF barriers to collect all ions in one “Barrier Bucket,” has been tested. Longitudinal phase space simulations show that with the Barrier Bucket method it is unfeasible to optimize between ion intensity in the bucket and the duty cycle the bucket occupies. Therefore the prior RF scheme, which proved to accomplish a duty cycle that satisfied the requirements, will have to be investigated also for the new ions.