Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment Research Articles

Multiple Coulomb scattering of muons in lithium hydride

Multiple Coulomb Scattering (MCS) is a well known phenomenon occurring when charged particles traverse materials. Measurements of muons traversing low $Z$ materials made in the MuScat experiment showed that theoretical models and simulation codes, such as GEANT4 (v7.0), over-estimated the scattering. The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) measured the cooling of a muon beam traversing a liquid hydrogen or lithium hydride (LiH) energy absorber as part of a programme to develop muon accelerator facilities, such as a Neutrino Factory or a Muon Collider. The energy loss and MCS that occur in the absorber material are competing effects that alter the performance of the cooling channel. Therefore measurements of MCS are required in order to validate the simulations used to predict the cooling performance in future accelerator facilities. We report measurements made in the MICE apparatus of MCS using a LiH absorber and muons within the momentum range 160 to 245 MeV/c. The measured RMS scattering width is about 9% smaller than that predicted by the approximate formula proposed by the Particle Data Group. Data at 172, 200 and 240 MeV/c are compared to the GEANT4 (v9.6) default scattering model. These measurements show agreement with this more recent GEANT4 (v9.6) version over the range of incident muon momenta.

A computationally efficient unscented Kalman smoother for ameliorated tracking of subatomic particles in high energy physics experiments

The focus of this paper is to discuss improvements with respect to smoothing and its efficient implementation with the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) for particle tracking in High Energy Physics (HEP) experiments. At present, in almost all of the HEP experiments, smoothing is typically achieved using the Rauch-Tung-Striebel smoother or Kalman smoother that works naturally with the existing particle tracking algorithm, the Extended Kalman Filter. However, it does not work directly with the UKF that has recently been shown to improve particle tracking in the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment due to the fact that Jacobian matrices are not available in the UKF framework. Although a smoother, the Unscented Rauch-Tung-Striebel (URTS) smoother, exists that naturally works with the UKF, it is not computationally efficient provided that particle tracking is a large dimensional problem. Therefore, the existing smoothers do not provide an efficient solution to improve the overall particle tracking process for such problems where computational complexity is one of the main challenges. In this paper, an alternative to the URTS method is presented that does not only implement directly with the UKF but also requires less computational effort. We name it as Jacobian Equivalent Rauch-Tung-Striebel smoother.

Performance of the MICE diagnostic system

Muon beams of low emittance provide the basis for the intense, well-characterised neutrino beams of a neutrino factory and for multi-TeV lepton-antilepton collisions at a muon collider. The international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) has demonstrated the principle of ionization cooling, the technique by which it is proposed to reduce the phase-space volume occupied by the muon beam at such facilities. This paper documents the performance of the detectors used in MICE to measure the muon-beam parameters, and the physical properties of the liquid hydrogen energy absorber during running.

Unconventional ideas for ionization cooling of muons

Small muon beams increase the luminosity of a muon collider. Reducing the momentum and position spreads of muons reduces emittance and leads to small, cool beams. Ionization cooling has been observed at the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment. 6D emittance reduction by a factor of 100, 000 has been achieved in simulation. Another factor of 5 in cooling would meet the basic requirements of a high luminosity muon collider. In this paper we compare, for the first time, the amount of RF needed in a cooling channel to previous linacs. We also outline three methods aimed to help achieve a final factor of 5 in 6D cooling.

Demonstration of cooling by the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment

The use of accelerated beams of electrons, protons or ions has furthered the development of nearly every scientific discipline. However, high-energy muon beams of equivalent quality have not yet been delivered. Muon beams can be created through the decay of pions produced by the interaction of a proton beam with a target. Such ‘tertiary’ beams have much lower brightness than those created by accelerating electrons, protons or ions. High-brightness muon beams comparable to those produced by state-of-the-art electron, proton and ion accelerators could facilitate the study of lepton–antilepton collisions at extremely high energies and provide well characterized neutrino beams1–6. Such muon beams could be realized using ionization cooling, which has been proposed to increase muon-beam brightness7,8. Here we report the realization of ionization cooling, which was confirmed by the observation of an increased number of low-amplitude muons after passage of the muon beam through an absorber, as well as an increase in the corresponding phase-space density. The simulated performance of the ionization cooling system is consistent with the measured data, validating designs of the ionization cooling channel in which the cooling process is repeated to produce a substantial cooling effect9–11. The results presented here are an important step towards achieving the muon-beam quality required to search for phenomena at energy scales beyond the reach of the Large Hadron Collider at a facility of equivalent or reduced footprint6.

The liquid-hydrogen absorber for MICE

This paper describes the liquid hydrogen system constructed for The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE); MICE was built at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory to demonstrate the principle of muon beam phase-space reduction via ionization cooling. Muon beam cooling will be required at a future proton-derived neutrino factory or muon collider. Ionization cooling is achieved by passing the beam through an energy-absorbing material, such as liquid hydrogen, and then re-accelerating the beam using RF cavities. This paper describes the system creating the 22l of liquid hydrogen within the MICE beamline; the necessary safety engineering, the liquid hydrogen absorber and its associated cryogenic and gas systems are presented, along with its performance.

MAUS: the MICE analysis user software

The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) collaboration has developed the MICE Analysis User Software (MAUS) to simulate and analyze experimental data. It serves as the primary codebase for the experiment, providing for offline batch simulation and reconstruction as well as online data quality checks. The software provides both traditional particle-physics functionalities such as track reconstruction and particle identification, and accelerator physics functions, such as calculating transfer matrices and emittances. The code design is object orientated, but has a top-level structure based on the Map-Reduce model. This allows for parallelization to support live data reconstruction during data-taking operations. MAUS allows users to develop in either Python or C++ and provides APIs for both. Various software engineering practices from industry are also used to ensure correct and maintainable code, including style, unit and integration tests, continuous integration and load testing, code reviews, and distributed version control. The software framework and the simulation and reconstruction capabilities are described.

First particle-by-particle measurement of emittance in the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment

The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) collaboration seeks to demonstrate the feasibility of ionization cooling, the technique by which it is proposed to cool the muon beam at a future neutrino factory or muon collider. The emittance is measured from an ensemble of muons assembled from those that pass through the experiment. A pure muon ensemble is selected using a particle-identification system that can reject efficiently both pions and electrons. The position and momentum of each muon are measured using a high-precision scintillating-fibre tracker in a 4 T solenoidal magnetic field. This paper presents the techniques used to reconstruct the phase-space distributions in the upstream tracking detector and reports the first particle-by-particle measurement of the emittance of the MICE Muon Beam as a function of muon-beam momentum.

Recent Results from the Study of Emittance Evolution in MICE

The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) has measured the evolution of emittance due to ionization energy loss. Muons were focused onto an absorber using a large aperture solenoid. Lithium-hydride and liquid hydrogen- absorbers have been studied. Diagnostic devices were placed upstream and downstream of the focus, enabling the phase- space coordinates of individual muons to be reconstructed. By observing the properties of ensembles of muons, the change in beam emittance was measured. Data taken during 2016 and 2017 are currently under study to evaluate the change in emittance due to the absorber for muon beams with various initial emittance, momenta, and settings of the magnetic lattice. The current status and the most recent results of these analyses will be presented.

The liquid-hydrogen absorber for MICE

The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) has been built at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory to demonstrate the principle of muon beam phase-space reduction via ionization cooling. Muon beam cooling will be required at a future proton-derived neutrino factory or muon collider. Ionization cooling is achieved by passing the beam through an energy-absorbing material, such as liquid hydrogen, and then re-accelerating the beam using RF cavities. This paper describes the hydrogen system constructed for MICE including: the liquid-hydrogen absorber, its associated cryogenic and gas systems, the control and monitoring system, and the necessary safety engineering. The performance of the system in cool-down, liquefaction, and stable operation is also presented.

Recent results from MICE on multiple Coulomb scattering and energy loss

Muon beams of low emittance provide the basis for the intense, well characterised neutrino beams of a neutrino factory and for multi-TeV lepton-antilepton collisions at a muon collider. The international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) will demonstrate ionization cooling, the technique by which it is proposed to reduce the phase-space volume occupied by the muon beam. MICE was constructed in a series of steps. Data were taken in 2016 and 2017 in the Step~IV configuration which was optimised for studying the properties of liquid hydrogen and lithium hydride. Preliminary results from ongoing analyses will be described.

Analysis of the Training Behavior of the MICE Spectrometer Solenoid

Muon ionization cooling is theoretically well understood but has never been fully demonstrated experimentally. Ionization cooling is regarded as an important technology both in terms of cost and performance for a Neutrino Factory and is absolutely essential for a Muon Collider. The MICE experiment (Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment), based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, U.K., is currently collecting data to prove the concept. Part of MICE are two spectrometer magnets, each consisting of five superconducting large bore solenoids. The spectrometer solenoid is designed for a peak field of 4T. Both spectrometer magnets required about 15 quenches to reach the design current. However, it was discovered that both spectrometers do not remember their training; after a warm-up the spectrometers have to be retrained, following a very similar training curve. The MICE spectrometer was analyzed using 2-D and 3-D finite element software to understand the quench and training behavior; the analysis revealed a clamping mechanism, leading to a stick-slip situation for one of the coils in its coil pocket. This paper summarizes the results and makes suggestions how to improve the design.

Operational Experience With the MICE Spectrometer Solenoid System

The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment located at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in England utilizes a superconducting solenoid system for the muon cooling channel that also holds particle-tracking detectors and muon absorbers inside their bores. The solenoid system installation was completed in summer of 2015 and after commissioning the system it has been running successfully. This paper summarizes the commissioning results and operational experience with the magnets focusing on the performance of the two spectrometer solenoids built by the U.S.

The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment User Software

The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) is a proof-of-principle experiment designed to demonstrate muon ionization cooling for the first time. MICE is currently on Step IV of its data taking programme, where transverse emittance reduction will be demonstrated. The MICE Analysis User Software (MAUS) is the reconstruction, simulation and analysis framework for the MICE experiment. MAUS is used for both offline data analysis and fast online data reconstruction and visualization to serve MICE data taking. This paper provides an introduction to MAUS, describing the central Python and C++ based framework, the data structure and and the code management and testing procedures.

Data management and database framework for the MICE experiment

The international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) currently operating at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK, is designed to demonstrate the principle of muon ionization cooling for application to a future Neutrino Factory or Muon Collider. We present the status of the framework for the movement and curation of both raw and reconstructed data. A raw data-mover has been designed to safely upload data files onto permanent tape storage as soon as they have been written out. The process has been automated, and checks have been built in to ensure the integrity of data at every stage of the transfer. The data processing framework has been recently redesigned in order to provide fast turnaround of reconstructed data for analysis. The automated reconstruction is performed on a dedicated machine in the MICE control room and any reprocessing is done at Tier-2 Grid sites. In conjunction with this redesign, a new reconstructed-data-mover has been designed and implemented. We also review the implementation of a robust database system that has been designed for MICE. The processing of data, whether raw or Monte Carlo, requires accurate knowledge of the experimental conditions. MICE has several complex elements ranging from beamline magnets to particle identification detectors to superconducting magnets. A Configuration Database, which contains information about the experimental conditions (magnet currents, absorber material, detector calibrations, etc.) at any given time has been developed to ensure accurate and reproducible simulation and reconstruction. A fully replicated, hot-standby database system has been implemented with a firewall-protected read-write master running in the control room, and a read-only slave running at a different location. The actual database is hidden from end users by a Web Service layer, which provides platform and programming language-independent access to the data.

Use of a hardware token for Grid authentication by the MICE data distribution framework

The international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) is designed to demonstrate the principle of muon ionisation cooling for the first time. Data distribution and archiving, batch reprocessing, and simulation are all carried out using the EGI Grid infrastructure, in particular the facilities provided by GridPP in the UK. To prevent interference - especially accidental data deletion - these activities are separated by different VOMS roles. Data acquisition, in particular, can involve 24/7 operation for a number of weeks and so for moving the data out of the MICE Local Control Room at the experiment a valid, VOMS-enabled, Grid proxy must be made available continuously over that time. The MICE "Data Mover" agent is now using a robot certificate stored on a hardware token (Feitian ePass2003) from which a cron job generates a “plain” proxy to which the VOMS authorisation extensions are added in a separate transaction. A valid short-lifetime proxy is thus continuously available to the Data Mover process. The Feitian ePass2003 was chosen because it was both significantly cheaper and easier to actually purchase than the token commonly referred to in the community at that time; however there was no software support for the hardware. This paper describes the software packages, process and commands used to deploy the token into production.

Measurements of muon multiple scattering in MICE

Neutrino factories have been identified as the best facility for making precision measurements of neutrino oscillation physics. To fully realize this technology, a demonstration of the reduction of the phase space of a muon beam must be presented. The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) is tasked with providing such a demonstration. Ionization cooling uses the energy loss in a low Z material followed by acceleration in RF cavities to reduce the phase space of a beam on a time scale many times less than the time scale of muon decay. Multiple coulomb scattering (MCS) simultaneously inflates the muon beam and so the interplay between energy loss and MCS must be well understood. Unfortunately MCS is not well simulated in the materials of interest in the GEANT Monte Carlo program. A programme has commenced for MICE to measure MCS in several materials of interest including lithium hydride, liquid hydrogen, and gaseous xenon. The experimental methods and early results will be presented.

The Status of MICE

Muon beams of low emittance provide the basis for the intense, well characterised neutrino beams for a Neutrino Factory and for lepton-antilepton collisions at energies of up to several TeV at a Muon Collider. The international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) will demonstrate ionization cooling, the technique by which it is proposed to reduce the phase-space volume occupied by the muon beam. MICE is being constructed in a series of Steps. The configuration currently in operation at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is optimised for the study of the properties of liquid hydrogen and lithium hydride that affect cooling. The plans for data taking in the present configuration will be described together with some preliminary results. A description of the next experimental configuration, used for the final cooling demonstration, is also presented.

Lattice design and expected performance of the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment demonstration of ionization cooling

Muon beams of low emittance provide the basis for the intense, well-characterized neutrino beams necessary to elucidate the physics of flavor at a neutrino factory and to provide lepton-antilepton collisions at energies of up to several TeV at a muon collider. The international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) aims to demonstrate ionization cooling, the technique by which it is proposed to reduce the phase-space volume occupied by the muon beam at such facilities. In an ionization-cooling channel, the muon beam passes through a material in which it loses energy. The energy lost is then replaced using rf cavities. The combined effect of energy loss and reacceleration is to reduce the transverse emittance of the beam (transverse cooling). A major revision of the scope of the project was carried out over the summer of 2014. The revised experiment can deliver a demonstration of ionization cooling. The design of the cooling demonstration experiment will be described together with its predicted cooling performance.3 MoreReceived 30 January 2017DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevAccelBeams.20.063501Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasBeam dynamicsBeam processesBeam techniquesSecondary beamsAccelerators & Beams

Simulated Measurements of Beam Cooling in Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment

Simulated Measurements of Beam Cooling in Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment