When ISIS began operation 40 years ago it was the most intense pulsed proton source in the world and to this day it is perhaps the most productive. ISIS delivers a pulsed beam of protons for the production of neutrons and muons which are used for a comprehensive programme to study materials and medicines addressing the UK's science priorities, from supercharging new battery concepts to unfolding the secrets of DNA.
At the heart of the ISIS facility is a powerful proton accelerator that
accelerates H- ions up to 70 MeV. Charge-exchange injection allows ISIS to cheat the laws of physics and superimpose more than 100 proton pulses on top of each other. Despite the strong self-destructive forces that work against the beam containment, the protons are accelerated in just a few ms to 800 MeV and delivered to neutron and muon targets. A suite of instruments enables precise measurement of the impact of the secondary
neutron and muon beams on a huge variety of samples. Through techniques such as neutron diffraction or muon spin resonance spectroscopy, we can study these substances to deliver an extensive science programme.
Beyond discussing the existing facility, I will go on to introduce
recent and ongoing upgrades to the linac, target and detectors which will improve the beam and instrumentation still further. I will also present the ambitious proposed major facility upgrade, ISIS-II, which will be the UK and Europe's next-generation neutron and muon source.
Biography:
Chris Rogers read Physics at Somerville College Oxford (MPhys, 2002) and completed his PhD thesis, 'Beam Dynamics in a Muon Ionisation Cooling Channel' under Ken Long at Imperial College, London in 2007 working on the Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment (MICE). He subsequently joined the Intense Beams Group at STFC's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory where he has worked on modelling particle accelerators together with design for high acceptance, tight focussing lattices suitable for use in ionisation cooling channels.
Chris has a detailed knowledge of beam dynamics, with particular
specialisation in linear and non-linear dynamics in solenoid systems, and several years experience as a software developer, using C++ and Python programming languages. In addition, Chris has knowledge of particle physics detector design and modelling.
Chris played a leading role in the International Design Study for a
Neutrino Factory and Neutrino Factory portion of EuroNu, coordinating the muon front end design in these international studies. He went on to manage the computing and software work package of the Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment, coordinating a team to develop the slow controls software, accelerator simulation, detector readout and reconstruction. Subsequently he led the experimental design and analysis team, which delivered the first demonstration of ionisation cooling.
Chris is working on high intensity aspects of accelerators, considering ISIS and its upgrades. He contributes to development of the OPAL code in collaboration with Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland and FFA ring development in collaboration with Kyoto University in Japan, with a particular focus on injection systems, designing a painting and charge exchange injection system into FFAs for the first time.
He is now Deputy Study Leader for the International Muon Collider
Collaboration with responsibility for the Facility Design and leadership of the Muon Production and Cooling work package. This work package is responsible for design of the high power pion production target, the pion/muon capture system and the subsequent muon cooling system. Chris also studies muon cooling for low energy muons such as those used for material science in ISIS.