Neutrino Beamline Research Articles

Empirical formula for thin-rod neutrino target particle production

A simple analytical formula for particle production by high energy protons on thin-rod beryllium targets is discussed. This formula can be of great practical importance for fast calculations of neutrino fluxes and for designing new neutrino beamlines. Comparisons with the predictions of a full Monte Carlo calculation based on the FLUKA generator are presented.

Beamline operation using an industrial control system and distributed object-oriented hardware access

We describe the Control System of the CERN Neutrino Beamline, based on FactoryLink and equipment controllers using PCs running LynxOS. FactoryLink runs on a workstation and connects via communications tasks over Ethernet to both the PCs and the data acquisition systems of the experiments. The PCs access VME and CAMAC directly via the VICbus. Object-oriented control software, entirely data driven, deals with hardware modules and local survey operations. Remote stations have access via X-Windows. >

Measurement of the inclusive charged-current cross section for neutrino and antineutrino scattering on isoscalar nucleons

This paper reports on measurements of the total cross section for the inclusive reaction vμ+N, as a function of incident energy. Neutrinos and antineutrinos with energy in the range 30–300 GeV were produced in the 1982 Fermilab narrow-band neutrino beamline. A total of 35 000 neutrino and 7000 antineutrino interactions were recorded in the CCFR detector located in LabE. The incident neutrino flux was determined by methods similar to those used in previous experiments. The rate of increase with energy of the total cross section (σ/Ev) in the range 30 to 75 GeV was determined to be 0.659±0.005(stat)±0.039(syst)×10−38 cm2/GeV and 0.307±0.008(stat)±0.020(syst)×10−38 cm2/GeV for incident neutrinos and antineutrinos, respectively. The 5.9% systematic errors are due primarily to uncertainties in the flux intensity measurement. The energy dependence of the cross section in the regionEν=100–300 GeV was found to be linear, as determined by relative normalization techniques. A weighted average of our previous and present measurement for the total ν-N cross section yields: $$\begin{gathered} \sigma (vN) = 0.666 \pm 0.020(statistical \hfill \\ + systematic)E_v 10^{ - 38} cm^2 ; \hfill \\ \sigma (\bar vN) = 0.324 \pm 0.014(statistical \hfill \\ + systematic)E_v 10^{ - 38} cm^2 ; \hfill \\ \end{gathered} $$ .

An absolute calibration of the solid state detectors in the narrow band neutrino beam at CERN

A method to calibrate in an absolute way the solid state detectors that are used to monitor the muon flux in the (anti)neutrino beam line at the CERN SPS is described. This calibration is one way that opens the possibility to measure the (anti)neutrino flux needed for the determination of the absolute total cross-sections of (anti)neutrino-nucleon interactions. Tracks of charged particles are recorded simultaneously in the solid state detectors and in Ilford G5 emulsions. The readings of the detectors are compared with a count of the tracks in the developed emulsions. Absolute calibration factors (number of passing muons per delivered pC of electric charge) under particular circumstances are given. The overall accuracy that can be obtained is 3%.

A Fast Energy Dump for Beam Line Magnets

Tests of the 200A and 500A versions show excellent agreement with calculations and have operated without incident for some time. A 5000A version of a slightly different configuration has functioned well for over six months. The introduction of the fast ramp down circuits has substantially increased the flexibility of the Neutrino beam line by permitting the effective use of the accelerator flat top.

Digitizing Electronics for the EMI Multi-Wire Proportional Chambers

A complete system of electronics for digitizing pulses from a large array of multi-wire proportional counters is described. The system is based on the method of coupling the chamber pulses onto delay lines developed by Perez-Mendez. All three wire planes of each chamber are digitized, giving positional information for each avalanche in the chamber on three coordinates, x, y and a redundant coordinate. The system will be used with an array of 30 ch-iambers each one meter square, which will serve as an External Muon Identifier (EMI) for the 15-foot diameter bubble chamber in the neutrino beam line at NAL. Up to 16 events can be digitized in a 60 us beam spill.