Upgrading of the Split-Field Magnet (SFM)

The Split Field Magnet (SFM) was the largest spectrometer for particles from beam-beam collisions in the ISR. It could determine particle momenta in a large solid angle, but was designed mainly for the analysis of forward travelling particles.As the magnet was working on the ISR circulating beams, its magnetic field had to be such as to restore the correct proton orbit.The SFM, therefore, produced zero field at the crossing point and fields of opposite signs upstream and downstream of it and was completed by 2 large and 2 small compensator magnets. The gradient effects were corrected by magnetic channels equipped with movable flaps. The useful magnetic field volume was 28 m3, the induction in the median plane 1.14 T, the gap heigth 1.1 m, the length 10.5 m, the weight about 1000 ton. Concerning the detectors, the SFM was the first massive application of multiwire proportional chambers (about 70000 wires) which filled the main and the large compensator magnets. In 1976 an improved programme was started with two goals: - to have a high density of wire chamber points per trajectory (to be combined with a new software) - to include particle identification by means of Cerenkov counters and time- of-flight hodoscopes.