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The properties of the neutrino provide a unique window on physics beyond that described by the standard model. The study of subleading effects in neutrino oscillations, and the race to discover CP-invariance violation in the lepton sector, has begun with the recent discovery that θ_{13}>0. The measured value of θ_{13} is large, emphasizing the need for a facility at which the systematic uncertainties can be reduced to the percent level. The neutrino factory, in which intense neutrino beams are produced from the decay of muons, has been shown to outperform all realistic alternatives and to be capable of making measurements of the requisite precision. Its unique discovery potential arises from the fact that only at the neutrino factory is it practical to produce high-energy electron (anti)neutrino beams of the required intensity. This paper presents the conceptual design of the neutrino factory accelerator facility developed by the European Commission Framework Programme 7 EUROν Design Study consortium. EUROν coordinated the European contributions to the International Design Study for the Neutrino Factory (the IDS-NF) collaboration. The EUROν baseline accelerator facility will provide 10^{21} muon decays per year from 12.6 GeV stored muon beams serving a single neutrino detector situated at a source-detector distance of between 1 500 km and 2 500 km. A suite of near detectors will allow definitive neutrino-scattering experiments to be performed.

There have been active efforts in the U.S., Europe, and Japan on the design of a neutrino factory. This type of facility produces intense beams of neutrinos from the decay of muons in a high-energy storage ring. In the U.S., a second detailed feasibility study (FS2) for a neutrino factory was completed in 2001. Since that report was published, new ideas in bunching, cooling, and acceleration of muon beams have been developed. We have incorporated these ideas into a new facility design, which we designate as study 2B (ST2B), that should lead to significant cost savings over the FS2 design.

Practical ionization cooling rings could lead to lower cost or improved performance in neutrino factory or muon collider designs. The ring modeled here uses realistic three-dimensional fields. The performance of the ring compares favorably with the linear cooling channel used in the second U.S. Neutrino Factory Study. The normalized 6D emittance of an ideal ring is decreased by a factor of approximately 240, compared with a factor of only 15 for the linear channel. We also examine such real-world effects as windows on the absorbers and rf cavities and leaving empty lattice cells for injection and extraction. For realistic conditions the ring decreases the normalized 6D emittance by a factor of 49.

Presented are details of the staged electron laser acceleration (STELLA) experiment, which demonstrated high-trapping efficiency and narrow energy spread in a staged laser-driven accelerator. Trapping efficiencies of up to 80% and energy spreads down to 0.36% (1σ) were demonstrated. The experiment validated an approach that may be suitable for the basic design of a laser-driven accelerator system. In this approach, a laser-driven modulator together with a chicane creates a train of microbunches spaced apart by the laser wavelength. These microbunches are sent into a second laser-driven accelerator designed to efficiently trap the microbunches in the ponderomotive potential well of the laser electric field while maintaining a narrow energy spread. The STELLA scientific apparatus and procedures are described in detail. In-depth comparisons between the data and model are given including the predicted energy spectrum, energy-phase plot, and microbunch length profile. Data and model comparisons as a function of the phase delay between the microbunches and the accelerating wave are presented. The model is exercised to reveal how the high-trapping efficiency process evolves during the acceleration process.

Detailed experimental results of staging two laser-driven, relativistic electron accelerators are presented. During the experiment called STELLA (staged electron laser acceleration), an inverse free-electron laser (IFEL) is used to modulate the electron energy, thereby, causing ∼3 fs microbunches to form separated by the laser wavelength at 10.6 μm (equivalent to a 35 fs period). A second IFEL accelerates the electrons depending upon the phase of the microbunches entering the second IFEL with respect to the laser beam driving the second IFEL. The data presented includes electron energy spectra as a function of the phase delay and laser power driving the first IFEL. Also shown is a comparison with the computer model, which includes space charge and misalignment effects.