Design and Optimization of a Particle Selection System for Muon Based Accelerators

In muon accelerators, muons are produced by impacting high energy protons onto a target to produce pions. The pions decay to muons which are eventually accelerated. A significant background of protons and electrons are generated that deposit heat in superconducting materials and activate the machine. In this paper we describe a two-step particle selection scheme: a chicane to remove the high momentum particles from the beam and a beryllium absorber that reduces the momentum of all particles in the beam, resulting in the loss of low momentum protons. We review the design and numerically examine its impact on the performance of the muon front end.