The MERIT High-Power Target Experiment at the CERN PS

The MERIT (MER­cury In­tense Tar­get) ex­per­i­ment was run in the fall of 2007 using 14 and 24 GeV in­tense pro­ton beams from the CERN PS. It is a proof-of-prin­ci­ple ex­per­i­ment de­signed to val­i­date a tar­get con­cept for pro­duc­ing an in­tense muon source for a fu­ture muon col­lid­er or neu­tri­no fac­to­ry. The ex­per­i­ment suc­cess­ful­ly demon­strat­ed a tar­get tech­nique for mul­ti-MW pro­ton beams that uti­lizes a free-flow­ing liq­uid metal jet with­in the con­fines of a high-field solenoid. We de­scribe the ex­per­i­men­tal strat­e­gy and pa­ram­e­ters, as well as the re­sults ob­tained and their im­pli­ca­tions for fu­ture muon-based ac­cel­er­a­tor fa­cil­i­ties.