Speaker
Description
The MeV Test Area (MTA) secondary beamline at Fermilab has been designed to efficiently generate and capture a high-emittance, low-energy pion beam using the 400 MeV primary proton Linac beam on a tungsten target, leading to a tertiary muon beam from decay along its secondary path. The beamline can also capture surface muons (+) produced at the target. However, a key challenge lies in the significant muon decay angles emitted relative to the transported phase space of the pion beam – which is a result of the very low muon momentum from decays of 50-100 MeV/c pions. This, coupled with an almost constant pion production beam profile as a function of production angle, compromises the efficiency of the beamline elements to effectively capture muons outside the limited angular acceptance of the secondary beamline. To address this limitation, a low-energy MTA muon beam collaboration group is actively engaged in research and development for incorporating newly acquired, stronger-gradient quadrupoles to enlarge the capture solid angle of the secondary beamline compared with the current and conventional solenoidal capture approach. The work presented here is the plan to upgrade and optimize the lattice structure of the MTA's secondary beamline, in initial pion capture efficiency and enhancement of the muon flux delivered to experiments beyond the current conventional solenoidal capture configuration.
