Cryogenics for the MuCool Test Area (MTA)

Abstract

Abstract. MuCool Test Area (MTA) is a complex of buildings at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, which are dedicated to operate components of a cooling cell to be used for Muon Collider and Neutrino Factory R&D. The long-term goal of this facility is to test ionization cooling principles by operating a 25-liter liquid hydrogen (LH 2 ) absorber embedded in a 5 Tesla superconducting solenoid magnet. The MTA solenoid magnet will be used with RF cavities exposed to a high intensity beam. Cryogens used at the MTA include LHe, LN 2 and LH 2 . The latter dictates stringent system design for hazardous locations. The cryogenic plant is a modified Tevatron refrigerator based on the Claude cycle. The implementation of an in-house refrigerator system and two 300 kilowatt screw compressors is under development. The helium refrigeration capacity is 500 W at 14 K. In addition the MTA solenoid magnet will be batch-filled with LHe every 2 days using the same cryo-plant. This paper reviews cryogenic systems used to support the Muon Collider and Neutrino Factory R&D programs and emphasizes the feasibility of handling cryogenic equipment at MTA in a safe manner.

The Muon Cooling RF R&D Program

“…The Neutrino Factory and Muon Collider Collaboration (NFMCC) [4] has been working to solve the technical challenges in Neutrino Factory and Muon Collider design [5]. Part of this effort is MuCool, the R&D program at Fermilab for developing components for muon ionization cooling, including liquid-hydrogen absorbers [6,7], solenoid magnets and rf cavities. The MuCool program also covers instrumentation, high-power beam tests and support of MICE [8] (the international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment), an experiment using MuCool-developed components that is now under construction at RAL [9].…”