Multipacting studies in elliptic SRF cavities

Abstract

Multipacting is a resonant process, where the number of unwanted electrons resulting from a parasitic discharge rapidly grows to a larger value at some specific locations in a radio-frequency cavity. This results in a degradation of the cavity performance indicators (e.g. the quality factor Q and the maximum achievable accelerating gradient Eacc), and in the case of a superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) cavity, it leads to a quenching of superconductivity. Numerical simulations are essential to pre-empt the possibility of multipacting in SRF cavities, such that its design can be suitably refined to avoid this performance limiting phenomenon. Readily available computer codes (e.g.FishPact, MultiPac,CST-PICetc.) are widely used to simulate the phenomenon of multipacting in such cases. Most of the contemporary two dimensional (2D) codes such as FishPact, MultiPacetc. are unable to detect the multipacting in elliptic cavities because they use a simplistic secondary emission model, where it is assumed that all the secondary electrons are emitted with same energy. Some three-dimensional (3D) codes such as CST-PIC, which use a more realistic secondary emission model (Furman model) by following a probability distribution for the emission energy of secondary electrons, are able to correctly predict the occurrence of multipacting. These 3D codes however require large data handling and are slower than the 2D codes. In this paper, we report a detailed analysis of the multipacting phenomenon in elliptic SRF cavities and development of a 2D code to numerically simulate this phenomenon by employing the Furman model to simulate the secondary emission process. Since our code is 2D, it is faster than the 3D codes. It is however as accurate as the contemporary 3D codes since it uses the Furman model for secondary emission. We have also explored the possibility to further simplify the Furman model, which enables us to quickly estimate the growth rate of multipacting without performing any multi-particle simulation. This methodology has been employed along with computer code for the detailed analysis of multipacting in βg=0.61 and βg=0.9, 650 MHz elliptic SRF cavities that we have recently designed for the medium and high energy section of the proposed Indian Spallation Neutron Source (ISNS) project.