Accelerator development in India for ADS programme

Abstract

At BARC, development of a Low Energy High Intensity Proton Accelerator (LEHIPA), as front-end injector of the 1 GeV accelerator for the ADS programme, has been initiated. The major components of LEHIPA (20 MeV, 30 mA) are a 50 keV ECR ion source, a 3 MeV Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) and a 20 MeV drift tube linac (DTL). The Low Energy Beam Transport (LEBT) and Medium Energy Beam Transport (MEBT) lines match the beam from the ion source to RFQ and from RFQ to DTL respectively. Design of these systems has been completed and fabrication of their prototypes has started. Physics studies of the 20-1000 MeV part of the Linac are also in progress. In this paper, the present status of this project is presented.

Design, fabrication, room temperature RF test of 1050 MHz, β = 0.49 single cell large grain niobium cavity

“…In the high energy section (> 100 MeV) of an ADSS accelerator, superconducting elliptical cavities will be used to accelerate protons up to 1 GeV [1]. After the successful completion of the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) in the USA, the superiority of superconducting (SC) linacs over normal conducting ones is rather well accepted in the accelerator community to efficiently accelerate proton beams with velocity relative to speed of light, β, of about 0.5 [2].…”

RF properties of 700 MHz, β = 0.42 elliptical cavity for high current proton acceleration

“…In ADSS the high power proton beam (1 GeV, MW) from an accelerator bombards a heavy target (Pb, Bi) in the subcritical reactor and produces a large amount of spallation neutrons to keep the fission chain reaction going. The ADSS can utilize uranium and thorium efficiently and supply electric energy without producing much radioactive wastes thereby raising the safety of the system [1,2].…”

“…A high current proton linac (1 GeV, 30 mA) is an integral part of ADSS [2,3]. This linac essentially consists of the low energy, the intermediate energy and the high energy sections.…”

“…This linac essentially consists of the low energy, the intermediate energy and the high energy sections. In the high energy part RF superconducting elliptical cavities will be used to accelerate protons up to 1 GeV [2]. Superconducting cavities have quite a few advantages over their normal conducting counterparts.…”

Development of 2D particle-in-cell code to simulate high current, low energy beam in a beam transport system

“…To develop the technology of high intensity Linacs for our ADS programme, a 20 MeV, 30 mA CW proton accelerator is being built at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai. It consists of 50 keV ECR ion-source, low energy beam transport line (LEBT), 3 MeV radio frequency quadrupole (RFQ), medium energy beam transport line (MEBT) and 20 MeV drift tube Linac (DTL) [1]. In the low energy section of such accelerators, beams are strongly subjected to the Coulomb repulsion and understanding the behaviour of such space-charge dominated beams is a challenging task.…”