5/26/2023 0 Comments Mus2 facebookMuS2 aims to use laser plasma acceleration (LPA) to initially create 10 GeV particles in the space of tens of centimeters - compared to hundreds of meters needed for state-of-the art linear accelerators - and ultimateley develop scalable and practical processes to produce conditions that can create muons exceeding 100 GeV through innovations in LPA, target design, and compact laser driver technology. MuS2 will lay the ground work needed to examine the feasibility of developing compact and transportable muon sources.” Enabling this program is high-peak-power laser technology that has been steadily advancing and can potentially create the conditions for muon production in a compact form factor. Mark Wrobel, MuS2 program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office, says of the project: “Our goal is to develop a new, terrestrial muon source that doesn’t require large accelerators and allows us to create directional beams of muons at relevant energies, from 10s to 100s of GeVs – to either image or characterize materials. Muons can also be generated terrestrially, but this technique such high-energy particles that production is limited to large physics research facilities such as the Fermilab national particle accelerator in Illinois and the European CERN accelerator in Switzerland. Currently, two primary sources for muons exist: One is harnessing cosmic-ray interactions in the upper atmosphere, which naturally generate muons as they descend to Earth harnessing these muons, however, is tedious and not very practical, with days or months needed to capture enough muon data to produce meaningful results. Producing muons is extremely challenging, according to information from DARPA, because such production requires a very high-energy, giga-electronvolt (GeV) particle source. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) launched a program called "Muons for Science & Security" (MuS2) with the aim of discovering a compact source of muons, which are deeply penetrating subatomic particles - similar to electrons but about 200 times heavier - that can be used in a variety of defense and scientific applications because they travel easily through dozens to hundreds of meters of water, solid rock, or soil. Potential applications of muons include detecting the presence of special nuclear materials and other threat components and mapping the location of underground tunnels and chambers.ARLINGTON, Va. “ To address these diverse research areas, we anticipate building integrated teams composed of academia, national laboratories, and defense industries,” Wrobel noted. Under Phase 2 of the MuS2 program, research teams will come up with scalable accelerator designs exceeding 100 GeVs over a period of two years.ĭARPA wants teams to have expertise in the areas of simulation, experimentation and laser driver and system studies. The program will have two phases and Phase 1 will call for participants to perform preliminary modeling and scaling studies, validate models using experiments and generate 10 GeV muons over a 24-month period. “ MuS2 will lay the ground work needed to examine the feasibility of developing compact and transportable muon sources,” he added. “ Our goal is to develop a new, terrestrial muon source that doesn’t require large accelerators and allows us to create directional beams of muons at relevant energies, from 10s to 100s of GeVs – to either image or characterize materials,” said Mark Wrobel, MuS2 program manager at DARPA’s defense sciences office. The Muons for Science and Security program intends to use laser plasma acceleration to initially develop 10 giga-electronvolt particles in the space of tens of centimeters and come up with scalable processes to generate conditions that can build muons exceeding 100 GeV, DARPA said Friday. 5 for a four-year program that seeks to build a compact source of subatomic particles called muons to support national security and scientific applications. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will hold a Proposers Day on Aug.
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