Progress of the MICE experiment

TL;DR

The MICE experiment aims to systematically investigate muon ionization cooling using advanced instrumentation, with initial beam characterization completed and cooling demonstration planned for 2017.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive experimental setup for muon cooling and reports initial beam measurements and ongoing progress towards demonstrating ionization cooling.

Findings

Preliminary beam emittance measurement achieved

Beamline characterized for cooling studies

Cooling demonstration scheduled for 2017

Abstract

The international Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) will perform a systematic investigation of ionization cooling of a muon beam. The demonstration is based on a simplified version of a neutrino factory cooling channel. As the emittance measurement will be done on a particle-by-particle basis, sophisticated beam instrumentation has been developed to measure particle coordinates and timing vs RF. The muon beamline has been characterized and a preliminary measure of the beam emittance, using a particle-by-particle method with only the TOF detector system, has been performed (MICE STEP I). Data taking for the study of the properties that determine the cooling performance (MICE Step IV) has just started in 2015, while the demonstration of ionization cooling with re-acceleration is foreseen for 2017.