Design Study for a Superconducting Proton Linac From 20 to 100 MeV

Advances in superconducting radiofrequency technology during the past 15 years have made possible the large-scale application of superconducting niobium accelerators. So far this development has been restricted to rather low-current electron and heavy-ion accelerators. In addition to the power savings, the improved capability of superconducting cavities to provide acceleration of high currents with low beam losses, which follows from the ability to use larger beam apertures without a large economic penalty from increased rf losses, could make superconducting proton linacs very attractive for high-intensity applications, where activation of the accelerator is a major concern. During the past year, at Los Alamos, the authors have been looking at a possible upgrade to the 800-MeV LAMPF proton accelerator, to provide higher intensity injection into a new storage ring for a new high-intensity pulsed neutron source. As part of this upgrade to the LAMPF accelerator, the entire linac below 100 MeV would be rebuilt to provide improved beam quality, improved reliability, and to include funneling at 20 MeV for higher beam currents. Both a room-temperature and a superconducting option are being considered for the section from 20 to 100 MeV. At present, this section is a 201.25 MHz room-temperature copper drift-tube linac (DTL). For this new upgrade scenario the frequency from 20 to 100 MeV was fixed at 805 MHz. The new duty factor is assumed to be 7.2%, and the authors show some results at two currents, 30 mA and 150 mA, that span the range of interest. Their superconducting linac concept consists of individual multicell cavities, each driven by a klystrode. Focusing would be provided by superconducting quadrupole lenses between cavities. In the remainder of the paper they describe their study to evaluate the potential of a superconducting proton linac section for this application, and address some of the many design choices.