Achievement of very low jitter extraction of high power proton beams in the J-PARC RCS

Abstract

The 3 GeV rapid cycling synchrotron (RCS) of the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC) delivers high intensity proton beams to the Materials and Life Science Facility (MLF) and the main ring (MR). The repetition rate of the RCS is 25 Hz. The typical operation period of the J-PARC is 3.2 s, which consists of 80 RCS cycles. Four beam pulses are for the MR and the other pulses are led into the MLF. Since a bucket-to-bucket injection scheme is used for the MR, the beam from the RCS must be injected with a precise phase to the proper rf bucket of the MR. In case of the MLF, the beam has to be synchronized to the Fermi chopper, which has a tolerance of only a few 100 ns. Thus, stable beam timings with a very low jitter are required for both destinations. To realize the stable beam timing, we employ the timing system, which is not synchronized to the AC power line. Also the magnetic-alloy accelerating cavities and the full digital low-level RF control system are the keys for the precise beam phase control. For acceleration of a high power beam, the phase feedback loop, which damps the longitudinal dipole oscillation, is necessary. The phase loop is a cause of the jitter of the beam extraction timing. We apply a gain pattern of the phase loop to avoid the influence on the beam phase at the extraction. We have achieved a very low jitter extraction of a high power beam within 1.7 ns, which corresponds to 1 degree of the rf frequency at the extraction.