Abstract submitted to the
2005 Particle Accelerator Conference
16th to
PAC05: Abstract number 2544.
Muon storage rings have been proposed for use as sources of
intense high-energy neutrino beams and as the basis for multi-TeV
lepton-antilepton colliding beam facilities. To optimise the performance of
such facilities is likely to require the phase-space compression (cooling) of
the muon beam prior to acceleration and storage. The short muon-lifetime makes
it impossible to employ traditional techniques to cool the beam while
maintaining the muon-beam intensity. Ionisation cooling, a process in which the
muon beam is passed through a series of liquid hydrogen absorbers followed by
accelerating RF-cavities, is the technique proposed to cool the muon beam. The international Muon Ionisation Cooling
Experiment (MICE) collaboration has been formed to carry out a muon-cooling
demonstration experiment, and its proposal to Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
has been approved. The MICE cooling channel, the instrumentation and the
implementation at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is described together with
the predicted performance of the channel and the measurements that will be
made.