New Technology in Hydrogen Absorbers for Muon Cooling Channels

Ionization cooling is the only technique fast enough to cool and focus muons for neutrino factories and muon colliders, and hydrogen is the optimal material for maximum cooling and minimal multiple scattering. Liquid hydrogen absorber R & D for the Muon Colloboration has proceeded on parallel and complementary fronts. The continuing LH2 absorber engineering and technical developments by the MuCool group conducted by ICAR^#institutions (NIU, IIT and UIUC), the University of Mississippi and Oxford University, in cooperation with Fermilab (FNAL), will be summarized, including results from the first hydrogen absorber tests at the newly constructed FNAL Mucool Test Area (MTA). The program includes designs for the high-powered test of an absorber prototype (external heat exchange) at the MTA which are nearing completion to be installed by 2005, an alternative absorber design (internal heat exchange) being finalized for the approved cooling experiment (MICE) at Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory. Finally, a novel idea for gaseous hydrogen absorbers being developed at FNAL for a high-powered test at the MTA in 2006, and new technologies are proposed to be tested as a sequel to MICE.