Speaker
Description
Increasing energy of proton beam at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) from 800 MeV to 3 GeV will improve radiography resolution ten-fold. This energy boost can be achieved with a compact cost-effective linac based on normal conducting high-gradient (HG) RF accelerating structures. Such an unusual booster is feasible for proton radiography (pRad), which operates with short beam pulses at very low duty. The pRad booster starts with a short L-band section to capture and compress the 800-MeV proton beam from the existing linac. The main HG linac is based on S- and C-band cavities. An L-band de-buncher at the booster end reduces the beam energy spread at 3 GeV three times below that at the exit of the existing 800-MeV linac. We are developing proton HG standing-wave structures with distributed RF coupling for the booster. Results of this development, as well as breakdown rate measurements for a two-cell C-band test cavity at the LANL RF Test Stand, will be presented.
