Introduction to Proton Plan 2
The Fermilab Proton Plan 2 is aimed at producing an intense beam of neutrinos to enable a new generation of experiments to detect and study neutrino oscillations. NuMI is currently operational and has been supplying neutrinos to the MINOS experiment since March 2005. Future experiments, such as the proposed NOνA experiment, will need even higher neutrino fluxes--which requires an upgrade of the existing NuMI beamline. As presently designed the NuMI beamline is capable of receiving 400 kW of primary beam power from the Main Injector. The Proton Plan 2 upgrade (accelerator complex and beamline) plans for operation at a beam power as high as 700 kW. Proton Plan 2 has been subsumed into the NOνA Project. Go to the NOνA Home Page for more information.
Conceptual Design
A conceptual design for the Proton Plan 2 upgrades exists and a report (including cost estimates) was produced in November 2006. Proton Plan 2 makes use of the Recycler Ring to increase the number of protons on target. In Proton Plan 2 the Recycler will be used to accumulate and slip-stack 12 Booster batches, which are then injected into the MI in a single transfer. This reduces the NuMI cycle time by eliminating the multiple Booster injections into the MI. With the increased proton intensity and the reduced cycle time, NuMI will be capable of operating at 700 kW of primary beam power. In the indefinite future, following on Proton Plan 2, the proton intensity on target might be made even higher by momentum stacking 18 Booster batches in the Accumulator, resulting in 1.2 MW of primary beam power.
The beam parameters for Proton Plan 2, and a possible further upgrade, are listed in the table below. For reference, the table also includes parameters for the highest power operations to date. A more complete list of the beam parameters for Proton Plan 2 is listed in the Proton Plan 2 Parameter List. The calculations for protons per year assumes 44 weeks of running with an 85% machine uptime and running at 90% of the peak intensity.
| Best Operations |
NuMI Design |
Proton Plan 2 (Recycler) |
Future Possibility (Accumulator) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beam Power (kW) | 280 | 400 | 700 | 1200 |
| MI Intensity (1013 ppp) | 3.0 | 4.0 | 4.9 | 8.2 |
| Cycle Time (secs) | 2.0 | 1.9 | 1.33 | 1.33 |
| Protons (1017 prots/hr) | 0.54 | 0.77 | 1.3 | 2.2 |
| Protons (1020 prots/year) | 3.1 | 4.3 | 7.4 | 12.4 |
