Ballooning of an Ultra-Thin Superconducting Solenoid for Particle Astrophysics in Antarctica

Author

Makida, Yasuhiro ; Kumazawa, Teruyuki ; Tanaka, Kenichi ; Fuke, Hideyuki ; Yamamoto, Akira ; Yoshida, Tetsuya

Author_Institution

High Energy Accelerator Res. Organ., Tsukuba

Volume

16

Issue

2

fYear

2006

fDate

6/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

477

Lastpage

480

Abstract

An ultra-thin superconducting solenoid has been developed to provide a magnetic field of 0.8 T in a balloon-borne spectrometer for cosmic ray research, which is named BESS-Polar. The coil with a diameter of 0.9 m, a length of 1.4 m and a thickness of 3.5 mm was fabricated by using a mechanically strengthened aluminum stabilized superconductor. The coil winding is strong enough to eliminate the outer support cylinder which is necessary in the former thin solenoid type coils. Consequently the coil weight and material thickness are 40 kg, and 2.52 g/cm², respectively. The BESS-Polar was launched near the US McMurdo Station in Antarctica on December 13th 2004, floated at an altitude of 37000 m around the South Pole for nine days. The solenoid was charged up on the ground and kept the field in a persistent current mode during launch and floating. This report describes the flight performance of the solenoid

Keywords

cosmic ray apparatus; superconducting coils; superconducting magnets; 0.9 m; 1.4 m; 3.5 mm; 37000 m; AD 2004 12 13 to 22; Antarctica; BESS-Polar; US McMurdo Station; balloon-borne spectrometer; coil weight; coil winding; cosmic ray research; magnetic field; material thickness; mechanically strengthened aluminum; particle astrophysics; persistent current mode; solenoid flight performance; stabilized superconductor; ultra-thin superconducting solenoid ballooning; Aluminum; Antarctica; Astrophysics; Magnetic fields; Persistent currents; Solenoids; South Pole; Spectroscopy; Superconducting coils; Superconducting materials; Aluminum stabilized superconductor; balloon-borne experiment; detector magnet; thin solenoid;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Applied Superconductivity, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1051-8223

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TASC.2005.869659

Filename

1642891