SPS Beam Dump Facility – Comprehensive Design Study

The proposed Beam Dump Facility (BDF) is foreseen to be located at the NorthArea of the SPS. It is designed to be able to serve both beam dump like andfixed target experiments. The SPS and the new facility would offer uniquepossibilities to enter a new era of exploration at the intensity frontier.Possible options include searches for very weakly interacting particlespredicted by Hidden Sector models, and flavour physics measurements. In thefirst instance, exploitation of the facility, in beam dump mode, is envisagedto be for the Search for Hidden Particle (SHiP) experiment. Following the first evaluation of the BDF in 2014-2016, CERN managementlaunched a Comprehensive Design Study over three years for the facility. TheBDF study team has since executed an in-depth feasibility study of protondelivery to target, the target complex, and the underground experimental area,including prototyping of key sub-systems and evaluations of the radiologicalaspects and safety. A first iteration of detailed integration and civilengineering studies have been performed in order to produce a realisticschedule and cost. This document gives a detailed overview of the proposedfacility together with the results of the studies, and draws up a possible roadmap for a three-year Technical Design Report phase, followed by a 5 to 6 yearconstruction phase.