Design Parameters of a High-Power Proton Synchrotron for Neutrino Beams at CERN

Design studies have been initiated at CERN for exploring the prospects of future high-power proton beams for producing neutrinos within the LAGUNA-LBNO project. These studies include a possible increase of the SPS beam power from 500kW to 700kW for a new conventional neutrino beam line based on the CNGS technology, and at a second stage a 2 MW High-Power Proton Synchrotron (HP-PS) using the Low Power Superconducting Proton Linac (LP-SPL) as injector. A low energy 5GeV-4MW neutrino super-beam alternative based on a high-power version of SPL is also considered. This paper concentrates on the HP-PS by exploring the parameter space and constraints regarding beam characteristics, machine hardware and layout, for reaching the 2 MW average beam power.