Beam Parameters

High-intensity proton LHC-like beam pulses are extracted from the SPS towards HiRadMat. Within the SPS up to ~6·1013 protons per pulse are accelerated to a momentum of 440 GeV/c and extracted to focal spots as small as ~0.5 mm2 (smaller beamspots down to ~0.25 mm2 are available upon request). The available beam parameters can be found in the following table. Please note that the table shows the entire parameter space of available beam properties but not limitations of certain parameter combinations. Upon discussion with the SPS operators beam parameters can be tuned to match the needs of each experiment.

Protons208Pb Ions
Beam Momentum440 GeV/c173.5 GeV/n (36.1 TeV per ion)
Pulse Energyup to 4.3 MJup to 21 kJ
Minimum Bunch Intensity5 · 109 protons3 · 107 ions
Maximum Bunch Intensity2.1 · 1011 protons7 · 107 ions
Number of Bunches1 to 28852
Maximum Pulse Intensity6 · 1013 protons3.64 · 109 ions
Bunch Length1.5 ns (4 sigma)1.5 ns (4 sigma)
Bunch Spacing25 ns100 ns
Max. Pulse length7.95 us5.2 us
Cycle length22.9 or 40.8 s13.2 s
Beam Size at Targetvariable around 1 mm2variable around 1 mm2

The HiRadMat facility generally uses a 440 GeV/c proton beam extracted from the SPS with a pulse length of up to 7.95 µs and a maximum pulse energy of up to 4.3 MJ. In addition to protons, 208Pb ion beams with a momentum of 173.5 GeV/nucleon, a pulse length of up to 5.2 µs and a total pulse energy of up to 21 kJ can be used too.

Beam optics

The following plot shows an indicative configuration of the twiss parameters along the HiRadMat beamline providing a spot size in both planes of σ = 0.5 mm at the focal point of the first experimental test stand (table B). Please note that HiRadMat can deliver a large range of different twiss parameter configurations which are subject to limitations that depend on the requested spot size, focal point and number of requested bunches per pulse.