Proposal for muon and white neutron sources at CSNS

The China Spallation Neutron Source （CSNS） is a large scientific facility with the main purpose of serving multidisciplinary research on material characterization using neutron scattering techniques. The accelerator system is to provide a proton beam of 120 kW with a repetition rate of 25 Hz initially （CSNSⅠ）, progressively upgradeable to 240 kW （CSNS-Ⅱ） and 500 kW （CSNS-Ⅱ＇）. In addition to serving as a driving source for the spallation target, the proton beam can be exploited for serving additional functions both in fundamental and applied research. The expanded scientific application based on pulsed muons and fast neutrons is especially attractive in the overall consideration of CSNS upgrade options. A second target station that houses a muon-generating target and a fast-neutron-generating target in tandem, intercepting and removing a small part of the proton beam for the spallation target, is proposed. The muon and white neutron sources are operated principally in parasitic mode, leaving the main part of the beam directed to the spallation target. However, it is also possible to deliver the proton beam to the second target station in a dedicated mode for some special applications. Within the dual target configuration, the thin muon target placed upstream of the fast-neutron target will consume only about 5% of the beam traversed; the majority of the beam is used for fast-neutron production. A proton beam with a beam power of about 60 kW, an energy of 1.6 GeV and a repetition rate of 12.5 Hz will make the muon source and the white neutron source very attractive to multidisciplinary researchers.

Prompt acceleration of a μ^(+) beam in a toroidal wakefield driven by a shaped steep-rising-front Laguerre–Gaussian laser pulse

Recent experimental data for anomalous magnetic moments strongly indicates the existence of new physics beyond the Standard Model.Energetic μ^(+) bunches are relevant to μ^(+) rare decay,spin rotation,resonance and relaxation(μSR)technology,future muon colliders,and neutrino factories.In this paper,we propose prompt μ^(+) acceleration in a nonlinear toroidal wakefield driven by a shaped steep-rising-front Laguerre–Gaussian(LG)laser pulse.An analytical model is described,which shows that a μ^(+) beam can be focused by an electron cylinder at the centerline of a toroidal bubble and accelerated by the front part of the longitudinal wakefield.A shaped LG laser with a short rise time can push plasma electrons,generating a higher-density electron sheath at the front of the bubble,which can enhance the acceleration field.The acceleration field driven by the shaped steep-rising-front LG laser pulse is about four times greater than that driven by a normal LG laser pulse.Our simulation results show that a 300 MeV μ^(+) bunch can be accelerated to 2 GeV and its transverse size is focused from an initial value of w_(0)=5μm to w=2μm in the toroidal bubble driven by the shaped steep-rising-front LG laser pulse with a normalized amplitude of a=22.

A new method on diagnostics of muons produced by a short pulse laser

Muons produced by a short pulse laser can serve as a new type of muon source having potential advantages of high intensity, small source emittance, short pulse duration and low cost. To validate it in experiments, a suitable muon diagnostics system is needed since high muon flux generated by a short pulse laser shot is always accompanied by high radiation background, which is quite different from cases in general muon researches. A detection system is proposed to distinguish muon signals from radiation background by measuring the muon lifetime. It is based on the scintillator detector with water and lead shields, in which water is used to adjust energies of muons stopped in the scintillator and lead to against radiation background. A Geant 4 simulation on the performance of the detection system shows that efficiency up to 52% could be arrived for low-energy muons around 200 MeV and this efficiency decreases to 14% for high-energy muons above 1000 MeV. The simulation also shows that the muon lifetime can be derived properly by measuring attenuation of the scintilla light of electrons from muon decays inside the scintillator detector.