RF tuning and beam commissioning of CW RFQ for China-ADS Injector-I

Abstract

A 325-MHz continuous-wave (CW) four-vane radiofrequency quadrupole (RFQ) is employed in Injector-I of the China Accelerator-Driven Subcritical System. The radiofrequency tuning and beam commissioning were performed from January 2014 to January 2017. In a cold test, a stability study showed that the design of the segmented resonantly coupling and dipole stabilizer rods can shift the harmful quadrupole and dipole mode from the fundamental mode to above 2.6 MHz. We also found a simplified tuning method for the field unflatness, involving changing the inserted length of a few plug tuners. For achieving CW-beam commissioning, two full-size RFQs were constructed successively. The commissioning results indicate that the beam transmission rate decreased by approximately 3% as the normalized field unflatness decreased by 1%. A 10-MeV CW proton beam with an average beam current of 2.1 mA was achieved at the target of Injector-I, and the output beam energy of the RFQ was 3.18 MeV.