The main scope of the Antiproton Collector (AC) was to increase the antiproton
luminosity in CERN's accelerator complex. Upgrading to the AC increased the number of available antiprotons tenfold to around antiprotons per second. The reason for this was the much larger acceptance of the AC compared to the Antiproton Accumulator (AA) alone. Additionally, several methods to compress the antiproton beams'
phase space volume were applied, e.g.
stochastic cooling. The antiprotons were produced by accelerating protons onto a target. The resulting antiprotons emitted by the target material had a large
divergence, which called for special devices to focus them. Instead of
quadrupole magnets, which are conventionally used to focus particle beams, rods of solid
lithium with an applied high gradient magnetic field were implemented. The functionality of the Antiproton Accumulator Complex can be well understood through the analogon of a hydraulic system, which is depicted in the included picture. The tap represents the target systems that produce antiprotons. These are collected in the collector ring with a large acceptance (the funnel). The accumulator ring can be compared to a reservoir, where the antiprotons are accumulated and eventually released as even, well defined bunches. ==See also==