Feasibility study of a combined neutron centre for European Research and Technology

The CONCERT concept started from a simple observation that a long series of applications could soon benefit from the outstandipower proton accelerators (HPPAs). These new linear accelerators should produce beams of several tens of MW. They could act as proton factories, with the protons being used to create large fluxes of other particles of interest: neutrons, other hadrons such as pions, muons, neutrinos and exotic ions. In comparison with existing proton drivers (<1 MW), the expected increase in incident beam power will be reflected accordingly in the fluxes of secondary beams. For this reason, the latter are of the utmost interest for a series of applications : (i) Condensed matter studies by neutron scattering; (ii) Nuclear physics-study of Rare Ion Beams (RIBs); (iii) Accelerator Driven Transmutation (ADT) of long-lived radioactive waste; (iv) Technological Irradiation Tool (TIT) testing of materials; (v) Particle physics (muon colliders and neutrino factories). Previous studies have shown that there is a broad overlap between these different applications in terms of proton beam specifications, so that one can think of combining a number of these applications on the same site with a single accelerator. One can also exploit other synergies on targets, conventional facilities, technical supports, computing, personnel, etc. The feasibility study in progress aims at exploiting this concept. The presentation will detail the status of the project