Design of a compact RFQ linac for the transportable neutron source

Abstract

A transportable accelerator-driven neutron source based on the Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) linac is developing at Xi’an Jiaotong University (X-TANS). It will be a promising tool for the non-destructive inspection of immovable objects. The neutron yield above 10 11n/s can be obtained via 7Li(p,n)7Be reaction with a proton beam energy of 2.5 MeV. To exactly guarantee the transportability of the neutron source, it is essential to achieve the light, compact and low-power consumption of RFQ linac. The operation frequency of 325 MHz is chosen considering the balance among cavity size, cavity consumption, and electrode aperture. In addition, compact dynamics scheme is adopted to achieve short RFQ by sacrificing a beam bunching efficiency. The beam dynamics design and optimization have been performed based on Parmteqm. Beam tracking results show that RFQ can accelerate the proton beam to 2.5 MeV with an electrode length of 2.6 m and an effective transmission efficiency of 93.8%. To enlarge the redundancy of the input beam mismatch and make the beam match easier from LEBT to RFQ, the electrode aperture is designed to shrink gradually in the RFQ entrance. In addition, we also performed the RF electromagnetic design and optimization based on the full-length 3D RFQ model. Multiphysics simulations of the cavity in different working conditions are investigated at last.