Status of MICE, the international Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment

Muon ionization cooling provides the only practical solution to prepare high brilliance beams necessary for a neutrino factory or muon colliders, because it is fast enough to cool the beam within the muon lifetime. The muon ionization cooling experiment (MICE) is under development at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (UK). The goal of the experiment is to build a section of a cooling channel that can demonstrate the principle of cooling and to prove this by measuring its performance in a muon beam. In July 2010 the beamline and most of the detectors have been commissioned and the time of the first measurement of input beam emittance is closely approaching.