Electromagnetic design and beam dynamics simulation of a new superconducting accelerating structure for extremely low β protons**Supported by Major Research Plan of National Natural Science Foundation of China (91026001)

Abstract

For the application of high intensity continuous wave (CW) proton beam acceleration, a new superconducting accelerating structure for extremely low β protons working in TE210 mode has been proposed at Peking University. The cavity consists of eight electrodes and eight accelerating gaps. The cavity's longitudinal length is 368.5 mm, and its transverse dimension is 416 mm. The RF frequency is 162.5 MHz, and the designed proton input energy is 200 keV. A peak field optimization has been performed for the lower surface field. The accelerating gaps are adjusted by phase sweeping based on KONUS beam dynamics. The first four gaps are operated at negative synchronous RF phase to provide longitudinal focusing. The subsequent gaps are 0° sections which can minimize the transverse defocusing effect. Solenoids are placed outside the cavity to provide transverse focusing. Numerical calculation shows that the transverse defocusing of the KONUS phase is about three times smaller than that of the conventional negative synchronous RF phase. The beam dynamics of a 10 mA CW proton beam is simulated by the TraceWin code. The simulation results show that the beam's transverse size is under effective control, while the increase in the longitudinal direction is slightly large. Both the TraceWin simulation and the numerical calculation show that the cavity has a relatively high effective accelerating gradient of 2.6 MV/m. On the whole, our results show that this new accelerating structure may be a possible candidate for superconducting operation at such a low energy range.