A low energy antiproton transport from the ASACUSA antiproton accumulation trap (MUSASHI trap) to the antihydrogen production trap (double cusp trap) is developed. The longitudinal antiproton energy spread after the transport line is 0.23 +- 0.02 eV, compared with 15 eV with a previous method used in 2012. This reduction is achieved by an adiabatic transport beamline with several pulse-driven coaxial coils. Antihydrogen atoms are synthesized by directly injecting the antiprotons into a positron plasma, resulting in the higher production rate.
A compact, remote controlled, cost efficient diagnostic station has been developed to measure the charge, the profile and the emittance for low energy proton beams. It has been installed and tested in the proton beam line of the Project Prometheus at SANAEM of the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority.
A preliminary study of the Energy Production Demonstrator (EPD) concept - a solid heavy metal target irradiated by GeV-range intense proton beams and producing more energy than consuming - is carried out. Neutron production, fission, energy deposition, energy gain, testing volume and helium production are simulated with the MARS15 code for tungsten, thorium, and natural uranium targets in the proton energy range 0.5 to 120 GeV. This study shows that the proton energy range of 2 to 4 GeV is optimal for both a natU EPD and the tungsten-based testing station that would be the most suitable for proton accelerator facilities. Conservative estimates, not including breeding and fission of plutonium, based on the simulations suggest that the proton beam current of 1 mA will be sufficient to produce 1 GW of thermal output power with the natU EPD while supplying < 8% of that power to operate the accelerator. The thermal analysis shows that the concept considered has a problem due to a possible core meltdown; however, a number of approaches (a beam rastering, in first place) are suggested to mitigate the issue. The efficiency of the considered EPD as a Materials Test Station (MTS) is also evaluated in this study.
Hot cavity resonant ionization laser ion sources (RILIS) provide a multitude of radioactive ion beams with high ionization efficiency and element selective ionization. However, in hot cavity RILIS there still remains isobaric contaminations in the extracted beam from surface ionized species. An ion guide-laser ion source (IG-LIS) has been implemented that decouples the hot isotope production region from the laser ionization volume. A number of IG-LIS runs have been conducted to provide isobar free radioactive ion beams for experiments. Isobar suppression of up to 106 has been achieved, however, IG-LIS still suffers from an intensity loss of 50-100X as compared to hot cavity RILIS. Operating parameters for IG-LIS are being optimized and design improvements are being implemented into the prototype for robust and efficient on-line operation. Recent SIMION ion optics simulation results and the ongoing development status of the IG-LIS are presented.
For the production of a polarized antiproton beam various methods have been suggested including the possibility that antiprotons may be produced polarized which will be checked experimentally. The polarization of antiprotons produced under typical conditions for antiproton beam preparation will be measured at the CERN/PS. If the production process creates some polarization a polarized antiproton beam could be prepared by a rather simple modification of the antiproton beam facility. The detection setup and the expected experimental conditions are described.
An accelerator experiment was performed using a low-energy antiproton beam to measure antiproton detection efficiency of BESS, a balloon-borne spectrometer with a superconducting solenoid. Measured efficiencies showed good agreement with calculated ones derived from the BESS Monte Carlo simulation based on GEANT/GHEISHA. With detailed verification of the BESS simulation, the relative systematic error of detection efficiency derived from the BESS simulation has been determined to be $pm$5%, compared with the previous estimation of $pm$15% which was the dominant uncertainty for measurements of cosmic-ray antiproton flux.