Pion production models and neutrino factories

Scenarios For the building of muon colliders or storage rings suitable for the generation of robust neutrino beams call for the generation of a prodig ious quantity of pions. These pions are then conducted into a decay channel where the resulting muon decay products can be collected for cooling and s ubsequent acceleration. Central to this concept is the design and construct ion of a target which will be highly efficient in producing pions of both s igns while mitigating the absorption of these pions before they decay. This design effort is being facilitated by using two computer codes FLUKA and M ARS. We present comparisons of the two computer codes acid also present a c omparison of these codes with available data. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevie r Science B.V. All rights reserved.