The Superconducting Heavy-Ion Linac at Argonne

Abstract

The design, status, and performance of the first operating superconducting heavy-ion accelerator, a linac used to boost the energies of beams from a 9-MV tandem, is summarized. When completed in 1981, the linac will consist of 24 independently-phased splitring niobium resonators operating at 97 MHz. This linac is designed to provide 29 MV of acceleration. Because of the modular character of the system, the linac has been operable and useful since mid-1978, when a beam was accelerated through 2 units and the first nuclear-physics experiments were performed. Now, 16 resonators are in use, and a beam has been accelerated for ~ 6000 hr. Resonator performance has been remarkably stable, in spite of vacuum accidents, and the linac as a whole operates reliably without operators in attendance during nights and weekends. The ease and speed with which the beam energy can be changed is proving to be unexpectedly valuable to users.