Neutrino factory proton driver and target design

Neutrinos are very elusive particles belonging to the lepton family. They exist in different types corresponding to the different charged leptons, namely electrons, muons and taus. Contrary to electrons, neutrinos hardly interact with matter which makes them very difficult to detect and study. To the best of today’s knowledge, neutrinos have hardly any mass and they can change from one type to another (so-called “neutrino oscillation”). Most physicists think that this oscillation occurs because neutrinos have mass. A Neutrino Factory [1] is a special facility producing a large amount of neutrinos every year (typically 10$^{21}$ neutrinos/year). Its main purpose is to study the change of type of neutrinos between the place where they are generated and a remote location. In a Neutrino Factory, neutrinos result from the decay of muons, unstable particles with a mean lifetime of 2.2 $\mu$s in their rest frame. Sharp beams of high energy neutrinos are obtained at the end of the long straight sections of a multi-GeV muon storage ring.