The 7-gap-resonator–accelerator for the REX-ISOLDE-experiment at CERN

Abstract

The Radioactive Beam Experiment at ISOLDE (REX-ISOLDE-Experiment) which presently is being developed and under construction at CERN serves to investigate exotic, very neutron rich, radioactive nuclei [1](Radioactive beam EXperiment at ISOLDE: Coloumb Excitation and Neutron Transfer Reactions of Exotic Nuclei, Proposal to the ISOLDE commitee, CERNSIC94-25). A linear accelerator delivers radioactive ions which are produced by the isotope separator ISOLDE with energies between 0.85 and 2.2 MeV/u. The Linac will consist of a RFQ-accelerator, an interdigital H-Structure (IH) and three 7-gap-resonators with variable energy. While the LMU Munich is responsible for the frontpart of the accelerator, the backpart is being built by the MPI [2](H. Podlech, Master Thesis, MPI-H-V21-1997, Heidelburg, 1997). After estimation of the voltage of one resonator to 1.75 MV at 90 kW, the design velocities were fixed to 5.4%, 6.0% and 6.6% of the velocity of light. Three downscaled models (1:2.5) were built in order to optimize the shuntimpedance and the field-distribution at the operation frequency of the amplifiers of 101.28 MHz. The optimization of all low power resonators is now successfully finished. Extensive beam dynamic calculations were made in order to optimize the transmission of the beam up to the target. It turned out that final energies between 0.85 and 2.2 MeV/u with nearly 100% transmission can be achieved. The acceptance in the x-plane is 1.2π mm mrad (norm.) and in the y-plane 3.0π mm mrad (norm.). The bunchlength of the fully accelerated beam (2.2 MeV/u) is 2.4 ns at the target. The development of the resonators was accompanied by extensive MAFIA calculations. It could be demonstrated that spiral-resonators like 7-gap-resonators can be calculated with MAFIA with an accuracy of 1% in comparison with experimental results. Presently, the tanks and the half shells of the power type resonators are manufactured in the workshops of the MPI.