RF System of a Synchrotron for Protons and Heavy Ions

Abstract

In this paper the potential and the constraints of producing many kilovolts of rf accelerating voltage for synchrotrons in a cumbersome broad frequency range are reviewed from the electrical engineering standpoint. Particle dynamics aspects are not touched. Those issues are covered broadly in the proceedings of CERN and FNAL accelerator schools. The beam loading aspects are not touched either, they are treated in a separate paper by G. Rees in this lecture series. This paper elaborates on numbers and limits which determine cost and complexity of the rf system. For convenience of the author, most data and material are taken from SIS 18 synchrotron, presently under construction at GSI. Comparisons are made with other machines (Fig. 2). The numbers for other existing synchrotrons are found in the “Catalogue of High Energy Accelerators”, a supplement to the Proceedings of the 1980 High Energy Accelerator Conference. However, this official compilation does not contain data of the no more existing synchrotrons which have played a splendid role in the 35 year-old history of rf acceleration in synchrotrons. Those machines were: a) the Cosmotron at BNL, b) the Princeton Pennsylvania Accelerator, c) the Zero Gradient Synchrotron at ANL, d) the Nimrod at Rutherford Laboratory, and the first proton synchrotron in Europe in Birmingham, which came 1 year later than the Cosmotron.