Beam diagnostics for measurements of in-flight annihilation cross sections of antiprotons at 130 keV

The ASACUSA (the Atomic Spectroscopy And Collisions Using Slow Antiprotons) collaboration of CERN is currently attempting to measure the antiproton-nucleus in-flight annihilation cross sections on thin target foils of C, Pd, and Pt at the kinetic energy of 130 keV. The low-energy antiprotons were provided by the Antiproton Decelerator of CERN and a radio-frequency quadrupole decelerator developed by the ASACUSA collaboration. A beam profile monitor based on secondary electron emission was developed for this measurement. It was used to measure the spatial profile of 200-ns-long beam pulses containing 10⁵-10⁶ antiprotons with an active area of 40 mm × 40 mm and a spatial resolution of 4 mm. Using this monitor, we succeeded in finely tuning antiproton beams to an 80-mm-diameter target, and observed some annihilation events originating from the target. (author)