Capacitor energy needed to induce transitions from the superconducting to the normal state

The purpose of this paper is to describe a technique to turn a long length of superconducting wire normal by dumping a charged capacitor into it and justify some formulae needed in the design. The physical phenomenon is described. A formula for the energy to be stored in the capacitor is given. There are circumstances where the dc in an electrical circuit containing superconducting elements has to be turned off quickly and where the most convenient way to switch the current off is to turn a large portion or all of the superconducting wire normal. Such was the case of the Time Projection Chamber (TPC) superconducting magnet as soon as a quench was detected. The technique used was the discharge of a capacitor into the coil center tap. It turned the magnet winding normal in ten milliseconds or so and provided an adequate quench protection. The technique of discharging a capacitor into a superconducting wire should have many other applications whenever a substantial resistance in a superconducting circuit has to be generated in that kind of time scale. The process involves generating a pulse of large currents in some part of the circuit and heating the wire up by ac losses until the value of the wire critical current is smaller than the dc current. Use of low inductance connections to the circuit is necessary. Then the dc gets turned off due to the resistance of the wire as in a magnet quench