Upgrade study of INR proton linac for production of 3 MW beam

Abstract

There are many proposals for the construction of proton linacs with beam power up to 200 MW for various applications (energy production, nuclear waste transmutation, etc.). In Russia there is a discussion of the necessity for the construction of a proton linac which must exceed the beam power by one order of magnitude with respect to the existing linacs. Such a linac must produce a 1 GeV energy beam with a 3 mA average current. The existing facility in the Institute for Nuclear Research allows an upgrade of the linac for the acceleration of a higher intensity beam. The facility consists of a high intensity proton linac and an experimental area. The latter has been constructed for the transportation of several high intensity beams inside a 200 mm aperture beamline. Therefore it can be safely used for the transportation of a very high power beam to the target. For the production of a 3 mA beam it is proposed to extend the duty factor of the linac up to 6%. The accelerating structure above 200 MeV must be replaced by a superconducting structure operating at 594.6 MHz. The surface field of 17 MV/m in the superconducting structure provides acceleration of protons up to 1 GeV over the length of the existing linac.