Professor Welsch visits ESS

QUASAR Group leader Professor Carsten P Welsch visited the European Spallation Source (ESS) in Lund on 16 - 17 May 2024, where he shared insights from his group's latest research on advanced beam monitoring technologies. His seminar, titled "A Gas Jet-based Beam Monitor for Proton and Heavy Ion Beams," described recent R&D results that have good potential for application at the ESS.

 

In his seminar talk, Professor Welsch discussed the Beam Gas Curtain (BGC) monitor that was installed at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN as part of the High Luminosity LHC upgrade during the 2022 year-end technical stop. This novel monitor uses a supersonic beam of neon shaped into a thin curtain that intersects the LHC's primary beam at a 45-degree angle. The resulting fluorescence from this interaction enables a non-invasive measurement of the circulating beam’s 2-dimensional profile.

 

He described the functioning principle of the BGC monitor and initial results from the LHC. He also explored the monitor's potential applications in other research environments, particularly emphasizing how this technology could be adapted for use at the ESS.

 

Following his seminar, Professor Welsch toured the ESS accelerator facility on Friday morning. He expressed his admiration for the good progress ESS has made in developing one of the world's leading facilities for materials research. The state-of-the-art infrastructure and the forward-thinking approach of the ESS team left a strong impression, paving the way for potential collaborative research.

The visit highlighted several opportunities for future collaboration between the QUASAR Group and ESS, particularly in the areas of beam instrumentation and data-driven research. This could help enhance the precision and efficiency of experiments conducted at the facility.

 

Many thanks go to Roxana, Tom and Yngve for their hospitality and the excellent discussions!