Beam impact experiment of 440 GeV/p protons on superconducting wires and tapes in a cryogenic environment

The superconducting magnets used in high energy particle accelerators such as CERN’s LHC can be impacted by the circulating beam in case of specific failure cases. This leads to interaction of the beam particles with the magnet components, like the superconducting coils, directly or via secondary particle showers. The interaction leads to energy deposition in the timescale of microseconds and induces large thermal gradients within the superconductors in the order of 100 K/mm. To investigate the effect on the superconductors, an experiment at CERN’s HiRadMat facility was designed and executed, exposing short samples of Nb-Ti and Nb$_3$Sn strands as well as YBCO tape in a cryogenic environment to microsecond 440 GeV/p proton beams. The irradiated samples were extracted and are being analyzed for their superconducting properties, such as the critical transport current. This paper describes the experimental setup as well as the first results of the visual inspection of the samples.