UA9

In high-energy and particle physics success of experimental research is largely dependent on the quality of charged particles beam shaping during its both acceleration and injection in storage rings. To control the beams of charged particles, electromagnetic fields of different origin and configurations are typically applied. A common technique is based on the use of the electromagnetic field of the dipoles, quadrupoles, wigglers etc. of giant sizes (several meters for LHC), as well as bulky collimators. There is, however, another method originated on the use of electric fields of solids. For example, the fields in the crystals can reach enormously high gradients of 100 GeV/m, once oriented with respect to the impinging beam to be in channeling regime, which significantly exceeds the maximum attainable in modern accelerators (accelerators acting characterized by 50-100 MeV/m gradients).

UA9 project, bringing together a large group of physicists, theorists and experimentalists, and engineers-physicists from Europe and Russia, aimed at the utilization of specially grown crystals to form beams of relativistic particles, in particular, the use of bent crystals for beams collimation. Studying the processes of charged relativistic particles motion in bent crystal channels shows high efficiency beam collimation enforced by suppression of inelastic scattering processes. Crystal collimators are lightweight compact devices of millimeter-size “almost straight” silicon crystals (bend angles estimated by microradians).