EUROnu

Welcome to the EUROnu homepage!

EUROnu is a European Commission FP7 Design Study entitled:

A High Intensity Neutrino Oscillation Facility in Europe

Further information can be found from the menus on the left and right.

EUROnu members should register to enable access to the consortium information by logging in. To do this, please send your name, institute, email address and preferred userid to the project coordinator.

What is EUROnu?

EUROnu is a Framework Programme 7 Design Study which started on 1st September 2008 and will run for 4 years. The primary aims are to study three possible future neutrino oscillation faciltiies for Europe and do a cost and performance comparison.

The four facilities being studied are:

CERN to Frejus superbeam
Neutrino Factory
Beta Beam with higher Q isotopes
Full Moon in France

In addition, EUROnu will look at the performance of the baseline detectors for each facility and determine the physics reach of each. Although a European project, EUROnu will collaborate closely with related international activities, in particular the International Design Study for a Neutrino Factory, IDS-NF.

Participants & Contributors

The following institutes are full members of the EUROnu consortium:

Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK
CEA, France
CERN, Switzerland
Glasgow University, UK
Imperial College, London, UK
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Spain
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France
Politechnika Krakowska, Poland
Durham University, UK
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Italy
Max Planck Gesellschaft zur Foerderijng der Wissenschaften E.V., Germany
Oxford University, UK
Sofiiski Universitet Sveti Kliment Ohridski, Bulgaria
Warwick University, UK
Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium

The following are Associate members of EUROnu:

Aachen University, Germany
Argonne National Laboratory, USA
Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA
Brunel University, UK
Cockcroft Institute, UK
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, USA
GANIL, France
Geneva University, Switzerland
India-based Neutrino Observatory
Institute of Applied Physics, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
JINR, Dubna, Russia
Lisbon University, Portugal
TRIUMF Laboratory, Canada
US Neutrino Factory and Muon Collider Collaboration
Virginia Polytechnic Institute, USA
Weizmann Institute, Rehovot, Israel

Documents

Documents covering more than one WP.

NB All documents using EUROnu funds must contain the following acknowledgement:

We acknowledge the financial support of the European Community under the European Commission Framework Programme 7 Design Study: EUROnu, Project Number 212372. The EC is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.

After submitting a document, you must contact the project coordinator for document approval. It will not appear until this has been done!

Documents for specific work packages follow. The document number should be in the form EUROnu-WPm-nnn, where m is the WP number and nnn should increment from the last document.

Work Packages

WP 1: Management and knowledge dissemination

Coordinator: Rob Edgecock
Deputy: to be appointed

Objectives

Working with the management structure described in section 2.1, this work package will coordinate the contractual, financial and administrative aspects of the Design Study and will oversee the technical and scientific work of the other work packages. It will be responsible for ensuring the project milestones are achieved and the deliverables produced on time. Further, this work package will be responsible for knowledge management for the Design Study, working with a specially created Dissemination Board. It will coordinate the protection, use and dissemination of the knowledge generated during the project. Finally, working with coordinators of the other WPs and a range of experts, it will use the information generated by the other WPs to make a relative cost and performance comparison between the facilities, for discussion by stakeholders. To do this, it will investigate, assess and select the criteria upon which the comparison will be made, in partnership with participants in the DS and international collaborators.

Tasks

Coordination task: coordination of the contractual, financial and administrative aspects of the Design Study, including delivery of annual reports and control of the funds.
Oversight task: oversight of the technical and scientific aspects of the Design Study, including the monitoring of milestones and ensuring that deliverables are produced on time.
Knowledge task: management of the knowledge generated by the Design Study, including its protection, use and dissemination.
Comparison task: comparison between the three facilities, based on their physics reach and relative cost, taking into account the knowledge of the neutrino oscillation parameters available at that time. Determination of the criteria to be used.

WP2: Super-Beam

Coordinator: Marco Zito
Deputy: Chris Densham

Objectives

The Super-Beam work package will address the proton driver, the target and the hadron collector system. A driver with 4 MW proton beam is a key issue of future neutrino beams. In this study we will focus on the proposed 4 MW Superconducting Proton Linac (SPL) at CERN. Two conceptual design reports have already been written for the SPL and critical R&D; is being undertaken in the HIPPI JRA of the CARE FP6 I3. For these reasons, this work package will only address the issues concerning the proton energy and beam profile specific to neutrino beams. The target part is a crucial point of this study and considerable effort is required to design a viable system in the very high intensity proton beam which will induce heat shocks, power dissipation problems and radiation damage. Preliminary studies have been done in the framework of BENE Network in the FP6 CARE I3 on several proposed solutions. Near future tests, such as those which will be done by MERIT experiment, will give more input to this study. As the pions emerging from the target have a wide range of angles and momenta, it is necessary to design a magnetic collection system, focusing as many hadrons as possible into a forward direction to optimize the neutrino intensity. This system will suffer from similar problems to the target, plus thermal stress and fatigue due to the very high pulsed current sent through it in order to obtain the required magnetic field for a good focusing. An important part of this system is the high current/high frequency pulser which has to be carefully designed to assure high performance and longevity. For future high intensity neutrino beams, it is likely that the target will be inside the collector system or very close to it, inducing extra difficulties such as power dissipation. For this reason, the integration of both systems, target and collector, also has to be addressed. Finally, a simulation of the whole system (target, collector, etc) is needed to optimize the overall performance. This simulation will track the pions through the target and the collector and follow their decay to produce the neutrino beam. Characteristics of the neutrino beam (flux, spectrum, composition) will be provided as input to assess physics performance.

Tasks

Coordination task: responsibility for the WP, including the objectives, milestones and deliverables, and for the overall coherence of the Super-Beam design.
Review task: review of the baseline design for the proton driver, the target and the hadron collector.
Proton Driver: assessing special requirements for the SPL for neutrino beams and modifying the design appropriately.
Target: determining the preferred solutions for Super-Beam and Neutrino Factory.
Hadron production: study of the rate of hadron production in the interactions between the protons and the target on the basis of existing experimental results and currently available models.
Collection system: The design of a hadron collection system will be done taking into account the severe operation conditions.
Hadron collector pulsing system: A study of possible options for the collector pulsing system will be done and a baseline design will be identified.
Neutrino Beam characteristics: a simulation of the whole system from the target and collector to the neutrino beam will be provided.
Target/Collector integration: A study of the integration of the target into the collector and both into the target station for both a Super-Beam and a Neutrino Factory.

WP3: Neutrino Factory

Coordinator: Juergen Pozimski
Deputy: Gersende Prior

Objectives

The International Scoping Study of a future Neutrino Factory and Super-Beam facility (the ISS) established the baseline specification for the various accelerator systems that are required to produce high-intensity, high-energy neutrino beams in the Neutrino Factory. The ISS also established that the remaining crucial issues that should be addressed through the Design Study are: the muon front-end, including the ionisation-cooling channel; the large-aperture, rapid, acceleration systems; and the target and the handling of the high-power proton beam that emerges from the pion-production target. In addition, in order to assess quantitatively the performance of the Neutrino Factory it is essential to develop an end-to-end simulation of the accelerator complex.

The Neutrino Factory work package is therefore designed to address each of these issues. Simulations of the baseline ionisation-cooling channel will be performed with a view to establishing the performance. In parallel, the potential of alternative ionisation-cooling options will be investigated to establish whether they are feasible and to determine whether they offer a performance or cost advantage. When the results of the MICE experiment are available it will be important to include these in the simulation. The baseline large-aperture, rapid acceleration system will also be studied; in addition to determining the performance of the systems involved, care will be taken to integrate the treatment of the ionisation-cooling system with the first stages of the muon acceleration. It is essential that these issues are addressed before a conceptual design report for the facility is completed. Consideration of the handling of the high-power proton beam that emerges from the target will be limited to the key issues that pertain to the Neutrino Factory: the safe handling of the beam power within the super-conducting solenoids that form the pion capture system. The end-to-end simulation developed in the course of the Design Study will be used to evaluate the performance of the facility.

Tasks

Coordination task: leading the task, with responsibility for ensuring that the specification of the muon front-end and acceleration systems are compatible. It is also responsible for ensuring that an appropriate framework for the end-to-end simulation is available.
Muon front-end task: The muon front-end task will provide a detailed evaluation of the performance of the muon front-end.
Acceleration task: The acceleration task will develop a detailed definition of the acceleration scheme that is matched to the muon front-end and evaluate its performance.
Proton-beam handling task: will develop a detailed concept for the handling of the spent proton beam that emerges from the target.
Integration task: The integration task will deliver an appropriate end-to-end simulation of the accelerator complex that will allow the performance of the facility to be determined.

WP4: Beta-Beam

Coordinator: Elena Wildner
Deputy: Christian Hansen
HomePage: cern.ch/betanu
Data Base: Beta-Beam-Parameters

Objectives

The Beta Beam work package will address the issues of ion production and beam bunching for a Beta Beam facility. The work presently undertaken in the FP6 EURISOL DS indicates that these are the major critical issues that have to be solved to make any proposed scenario for the Beta Beam possible.

A new production concept using an internal target in a low energy production ring will be studied with special attention on the collection device for the produced radioactive ions. The study will start with a review of the EURISOL DS Beta Beam baseline for the new proposed isotopes – notably 8Li and 8B with high Q values – and the corresponding intensities that are expected with this new concept.

For beam bunching a high frequency ECR concept will be studied as a continuation of work started in EURISOL DS.

The decay ring lattice will have to be adapted to the new isotopes. The studies of the magnet protection systems for the superconducting magnets and of the collimation system started in EURISOL DS will be continued.

Tasks

Coordination task: leading the Beta Beam WP, with responsibility for the parameter list and for the overall coherence of the baseline scenario. The work will start with a review of the base line design for the new isotopes 8B and 8Li including the use of a future accelerator at CERN.
Production ring task: Production ring layout and lattice, simulations (6D) and technical aspects e.g. vacuum, RF etc.
ECR task: continuation of work with a 60 GHz ECR source for bunching studies of 6He and 18Ne started within EURISOL DS with the objective of reaching the high efficiencies needed for the beta-beam. Furthermore, a study and first tests will be done of necessary modifications to bunch 8Li and 8B. The design of the advanced magnetic structures to be used in ECR ion source technology will also be done.
Collection device task: A prototype of the collection device will be built and tested on-line The extraction efficiency for 8Li will be measured. Techniques to extract 8B from the collection device will be studied. The release efficiencies and the possible production channels will be studied theoretically and, if required, experimentally.
Decay ring task: The decay ring lattice has to be reviewed for the new isotopes. A study of a possible layout for superconducting dipoles for the beta-beam is required. The work on beam collimation and magnet protection started within EURISOL DS will be adapted for 8Li and 8B.
Decay ring bunch structure task: To study collimation and optimising the flux delivered to the detector.

WP5: Detector performance

Coordinator: Paul Soler
Deputy: Anselmo Cervera

Objectives

The aims of the detector work package will be to evaluate the baseline detector options needed to deliver the physics for each of the facilities. The top priorities for participating institutes will be to study the Magnetised Iron Neutrino Detector (MIND) for the golden channel at a Neutrino Factory, the Water Cherenkov detector for the Super-Beam and Beta Beam facilities and the performance of a near detector at each of the facilities for absolute flux normalisation, measurement of differential cross sections and detector backgrounds.

Tasks

Coordination task: leading the task, with responsibility for the coordination of the work of the different participants.
MIND task: Simulation of the magnetic iron neutrino detector (MIND), which is the baseline for a Neutrino Factory, including implementation of a toroidal field, optimisation of the geometry, event selection, efficiency as a function of threshold and background evaluation.
Water Cherenkov task: Define performance of water Cherenkov detectors for Super-Beam and Beta Beams, including efficiency as a function of threshold and background evaluation.
Near detector task: Design for the near detector in order to measure the absolute flux normalisation, differential neutrino cross sections and backgrounds to the far detector.

WP6: Physics

Coordinator: Pilar Hernandez
Deputy: Andrea Donini

Objectives

The physics work package will provide the tools and expertise to quantify the physics performance of the different facilities. The design of each facility must achieve optimal physics performance and this optimization is an iterative process, in which the physics capabilities need to be re-evaluated for the baseline scenarios as they get updated with the results of the accelerator and detector work packages, as well as with the results from neutrino experiments that will be running in parallel. Particularly important will be to include the results of T2K, NOnA and/or reactor experiments as they become available, since they will pin down more precisely the parameter space and therefore the expected neutrino oscillation signals in the future facilities.

The final goal of this WP will be to perform a rigorous comparison of the different facilities in terms of physics performance, using the same methodology and assumptions.

Tasks

Coordination task: leads the task and is responsible for the coordination of the work of the different participants.
Evaluation of physics performance task: the physics potential of different facilities will be evaluated in a coordinated manner.
Optimization task: the distance to the detector and the neutrino energy need to be optimized for all facilities taking into account the constraints from the accelerator WP. Similarly the synergies of the combination of two or more experimental setups at the same facility need to be quantified.
Evaluation of systematic uncertainties task: a fair comparison of physics potential requires including all systematic uncertainties, some related to the experimental setup (to be quantified by WP 5) and some related to theoretical unknowns. WP 6 will include these uncertainties in the physics analysis in a unified fashion.
Comparison task: the different facilities will eventually be compared in terms of their physics performance.