Flux creep in a Tevatron cable

The authors measured the slow magnetization decay of short sample (2.3 cm) of Tevatron cable in fields up to 0.3 T. The special susceptometer in development for these measurements is based on a commercial SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device) and is described in detail. The observed decay is logarithmic in time as expected from flux creep in the NbTi filaments. A strong correlation was found between the decay and the magnetization status of the sample. It is too early yet to present a quantitative correlation between what the authors observed and the decay observed in the sextupole component of Tevatron dipoles. The detailed understanding of this phenomenon may be instrumental in guiding the search for efficient superconducting synchrotron operational procedures