High pressure gas filled RF cavity beam test at the Fermilab Mucool test area

With a new generation of lepton colliders being conceived, muons have been proposed as an alternative particle to electrons. Muons lose less energy to synchrotron radiation and a Muon Collider can provide luminosity within a smaller energy range than a comparable electron collider. This allows a circular collider to be built. As part of the accelerator, it would also be possible to allow the muons to decay to study neutrinos.;Because the muon is an unstable particle, a muon beam must be cooled and accelerated within a short amount of time. Muons are generated with a huge phase space, so radio frequency cavities placed in strong magnetic fields are required to bunch, focus, and accelerate the muons. Unfortunately, traditional vacuum RF cavities have been shown to break down in the magnetic fields necessary.;To successfully operate RF cavities in strong magnetic fields, the cavity can be filled with a high pressure gas in order to mitigate breakdown. The gas has the added benefit of providing cooling for the beam. The electron-ion plasma created in the cavity by the beam absorbs energy and degrades the accelerating electric field of the cavity. As electrons account for the majority of the energy loss in the cavity, their removal in a short time is highly desirable. The addition of an electronegative dopant gas can greatly decrease the lifetime of an electron in the cavity.;Measurements in pure hydrogen of the energy consumption of electrons in the cavity range in 10-18 and 10-16 joules per RF cycle per electron. When hydrogen doped with dry air is used, measurements of the power consumption indicate an energy loss range of 10-20 to 10-18 joules per RF cycle per ion, two orders of magnitude improvement over non-doped measurements. The lifetime of electrons in a mixture of hydrogen gas and dry air has been measured from < 1 ns, up to 200 ns. The results extrapolated to the parameters of a Neutrino Factory and Muon Collider indicate that a high pressure gas filled RF cavity will work in a cooling-channel for either machine.