The primary target facility for a neutrino factory based on muon beams

Neutrino beams from the decay of muons in a storage ring offer the prospect of very high flux, well-understood spectra, and equal numbers of electron and muon neutrinos, as desirable for detailed exploration of neutrino oscillations via long baseline detectors. Such beams require large numbers of muons, and hence a high performance target station at which a 1-4 MW proton beam of 16-24 GeV impinges on a compact target, all inside a high field solenoid channel to capture as much of the phase volume of soft pions as possible. A first concept was based on a carbon target, as reported in 2000 the Neutrino Factory Study-I. A higher performance option based on a free mercury jet has been studied in 2001 as part of the Neutrino Factory Feasibility Study-II. An overview of a mercury jet target facility is presented here, including requirements, design concept and summaries of simulated performance. Further details are presented in related papers at this conference.