UPGRADING THE CERN PS BOOSTER TO 1 GeV FOR IMPROVED ANTIPROTON PRODUCTION

For efficient antiproton production, a maximum number of Preliminary experiments had shown that the PS space-charge limit had protons has to be concentrated within one quarter of the CERN Proton to be overcome in order to make the scheme feasible. Indeed, after Synchrotron (PS) ring before sending the beam to the production raising the PSB output energy from 815 MeV to 1 GeV-with a rather target. Now, with the Antiproton Collector (AC) added to the modest effort-beams of> lOl3 protons squeezed into one quarter of Anriproton Accumulator (AA), the bunch length has to be shorter the PS ring were achieved. As a spin-off of this development, a new (about 20 ns) than before in order to allow bunch rotation in the AC. record proton beam for fixed-target physics was accelerated in the Whilst a more ambitious scheme providing such a beam is being Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), while beam losses in the PSB-PS line implemented, a funnelling method-where beams of two rings out of were reduced. Here we deal with this upgrading, give a short summary the four-ring Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB) are recombined in of past, present, and future i5 production beams in CERN, and discuss pairs by means of an RF dipole that permits longitudinal interleaving some trickier beam dynamics aspects of the very particular one of successive bunches-is in operation since the start-up of the AC. obtained by funnelling. _____