Pion production models and neutrino factories

Scenarios for the building of muon colliders or storage rings suitable for the generation of robust neutrino beams call for the generation of a prodigious quantity of pions. These pions are then conducted into a decay channel where the resulting muon decay products can be collected for cooling and subsequent acceleration. Central to this concept is the design and construction of a target which will be highly efficient in producing pions of both signs while mitigating the absorption of these pions before they decay. This design effort is being facilitated by using two computer codes FLUKA and MARS. We present comparisons of the two computer codes and also present a comparison of these codes with available data.