Installation of low impedance injection kicker magnets (MKP-L ) in the SPS

An interesting magnet development has been ongoing for the SPS injection kickers where the aim is to reduce significantly the beam-impedance-induced magnet heating of the MKP-L. On occasions it has already been necessary to limit the beam intensity in the SPS to prevent further heating of the MKP-L kicker magnets: the heating of the MKP-L’s will get worse with the beams required for HL-LHC. These type of magnets are very lossy from a beam impedance perspective: this is expected to be an issue during SPS operation with the higher intensity beams needed for HL-LHC (High luminosity LHC). After having validated a prototype module of this new development, four modules were assembled and installed into the SPS accelerator. In CERN’s Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), a fast kicker system (MKP) is used for injection of the beam into the accelerator. Two different types of the MKP magnets are used: the so called MKP-S and MKP-L, which have different sized apertures. The MKP-S is used for injecting all beams into the SPS, whereas the MKP-L is required to inject protons for the LHC and for fixed target physics. SPS beam circulates through the aperture of the MKP kicker magnets, causing beam-induced heating, via beam coupling impedance. Due to the difference in the aperture dimensions, the MKP-L heats significantly more than the MKP-S.