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Abstract The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) will be a new scientific user facility that produces rare-isotope beams for experiments from the fragmentation of heavy ions at energies of 100–200 MeV/u. During the projectile fragmentation, the rare isotope of interest is produced along with many contaminants that need to be removed before the beam reaches detectors. At FRIB, this is accomplished with a magnetic projectile fragment separator. However, to achieve higher beam purity, in particular for proton-rich rare isotopes, additional purification is necessary. RadiaBeam in collaboration with Michigan State University (MSU) has designed a 20.125 MHz radiofrequency (RF) fragment separator capable of producing a 4 MV kick with 18 cm aperture in order to remove contaminant isotopes based on their time of flight. In this paper, we will discuss the RF and engineering design considerations of this separator cavity.

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams driver linac was designed for acceleration of multiple-charge-state beams after the stripping at ion beam energies of 17 to 20 MeV/u depending on the ion species. The linac includes a 180° achromatic bend to select multiple charge states for further acceleration and to dump unwanted charge states after the first 45° magnet. Two rf rebunchers between the stripper and the linac segment 2 (LS2) are required to minimize the effective emittance growth of the multiple-charge-state beams and provide matching to the LS2. Recent studies have shown that the best choice for these two rebunchers is a room-temperature (RT) accelerating structure capable of providing robust operation in the presence of the stripped heavy ion beam contaminants. The latter can result in uncontrolled losses of contaminant ions after the passage off the stripper. Therefore, using a superconducting (SC) rebuncher after the stripper is not rational due to possible contamination and performance degradation of SC cavities over a long period of operation. For the beam bunching in the energy range from 13 to 22 MeV/u, two 161 MHz rebunchers based on interdigital H-type (IH) structure were developed, built, installed and commissioned with beam at the FRIB linac. This is the first experimental demonstration for application of a cw RT drift tube accelerating structure in this energy range.

Linac segment 1 (LS1) of the FRIB driver linac is composed of 15 cryomodules, consisting of 104 superconducting (SC) resonators and 39 SC solenoids. Four ion beam species (Ne, Ar, Kr, and Xe) were successfully accelerated up to 20.3 MeV/u in LS1 and transported to the designated beam dumps located in folding segment 1 (FS1). 100% beam transmission was measured through all cryomodules and the warm section of LS1. High-power equivalent beams were delivered to the beam dump in two modes: pulsed and continuous wave (cw). In the pulsed mode, the peak intensity of the argon beam was 14.8 pμA at 3% duty factor, which constitutes 30% of the FRIB design intensity for this particular ion beam. A cw argon beam was accelerated, demonstrating that the FRIB linac in its current configuration is the highest-energy cw superconducting hadron linac in the world. This paper presents a detailed study of beam dynamics in LS1 prior to and after charge stripping with a carbon foil.

Trapezoidal modulation of quadrupole electrodes offers additional benefits to the concept of a radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ). Because of the significant increase of the effective shunt impedance, RFQs with trapezoidal modulation have a reduced interelectrode voltage or resonator length as compared to conventional RFQs with sinusoidal modulation. This feature is especially valuable for RFQs operating in cw mode, since it reduces the required rf power. We develop a detailed procedure for the design of RFQ electrodes with trapezoidal modulation. With our design procedure and by properly choosing the trapezoidal cell parameters, we can easily control the peak surface fields in the RFQ to the same level as for sinusoidal cell modulation. The procedure is applied to the design of the electrodes for the ReA3 RFQ at Michigan State University.

We have developed a new design for a 176 MHz cw radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ) for the SARAF upgrade project. At this frequency, the proposed design is a conventional four-vane structure. The main design goals are to provide the highest possible shunt impedance while limiting the required rf power to about 120 kW for reliable cw operation, and the length to about 4 meters. If built as designed, the proposed RFQ will be the first four-vane cw RFQ built as a single cavity (no resonant coupling required) that does not require π-mode stabilizing loops or dipole rods. For this, we rely on very detailed 3D simulations of all aspects of the structure and the level of machining precision achieved on the recently developed ATLAS upgrade RFQ. A full 3D model of the structure including vane modulation was developed. The design was optimized using electromagnetic and multiphysics simulations. Following the choice of the vane type and geometry, the vane undercuts were optimized to produce a flat field along the structure. The final design has good mode separation and should not need dipole rods if built as designed, but their effect was studied in the case of manufacturing errors. The tuners were also designed and optimized to tune the main mode without affecting the field flatness. Following the electromagnetic (EM) design optimization, a multiphysics engineering analysis of the structure was performed. The multiphysics analysis is a coupled electromagnetic, thermal and mechanical analysis. The cooling channels, including their paths and sizes, were optimized based on the limiting temperature and deformation requirements. The frequency sensitivity to the RFQ body and vane cooling water temperatures was carefully studied in order to use it for frequency fine-tuning. Finally, an inductive rf power coupler design based on the ATLAS RFQ coupler was developed and simulated. The EM design optimization was performed using cst Microwave Studio and the results were verified using both hfss and ansys. The engineering analysis was performed using hfss and ansys and most of the results were verified using the newly developed cst Multiphysics package.

We have developed a new full 3D approach for the electromagnetic and beam dynamics design and simulation of a radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ). A detailed full 3D model including vane modulation was simulated, which was made possible by the ever advancing computing capabilities. The electromagnetic (EM) design approach was first validated using experimental measurements on an existing prototype RFQ and more recently on the actual full size RFQ. Two design options have been studied, the original with standard sinusoidal modulation over the full length of the RFQ; in the second design, a trapezoidal modulation was used in the accelerating section of the RFQ to achieve a higher energy gain for the same power and length. A detailed comparison of both options is presented supporting our decision to select the trapezoidal design. The trapezoidal modulation increased the shunt impedance of the RFQ by 34%, the output energy by 15% with a similar increase in the peak surface electric field, but practically no change in the dynamics of the accelerated beam. The beam dynamics simulations were performed using three different field methods. The first uses the standard eight-term potential to derive the fields, the second uses 3D fields from individual cell-by-cell models, and the third uses the 3D fields for the whole RFQ as a single cavity. A detailed comparison of the results from TRACK shows a very good agreement, validating the 3D fields approach used for the beam dynamics studies. The EM simulations were mainly performed using the CST Microwave-Studio with the final results verified using other software. Detailed segment-by-segment and full RFQ frequency calculations were performed and compared to the measured data. The maximum frequency deviation is about 100 kHz. The frequencies of higher-order modes have also been calculated and finally the modulation and tuners effects on both the frequency and field flatness have been studied. We believe that with this new full 3D approach, the enhanced computing capabilities and the calculation precision the electromagnetic design software offer, we may be able to skip the prototyping phase and build the final product at once, although we recognize that prototyping is still needed to establish and validate the fabrication procedure.

The front end of any modern ion accelerator includes a radio frequency quadrupole (RFQ). While many pulsed ion linacs successfully operate RFQs, several ion accelerators worldwide have significant difficulties operating continuous wave (CW) RFQs to design specifications. In this paper we describe the development and results of the beam commissioning of a CW RFQ designed and built for the National User Facility: Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS). Several innovative ideas were implemented in this CW RFQ. By selecting a multisegment split-coaxial structure, we reached moderate transverse dimensions for a 60.625-MHz resonator and provided a highly stabilized electromagnetic field distribution. The accelerating section of the RFQ occupies approximately 50% of the total length and is based on a trapezoidal vane tip modulation that increased the resonator shunt impedance by 60% in this section as compared to conventional sinusoidal modulation. To form an axially symmetric beam exiting the RFQ, a very short output radial matcher with a length of 0.75βλ was developed. The RFQ is designed as a 100% oxygen-free electronic (OFE) copper structure and fabricated with a two-step furnace brazing process. The radio frequency (rf) measurements show excellent rf properties for the resonator, with a measured intrinsic Q equal to 94% of the simulated value for OFE copper. An O^{5+} ion beam extracted from an electron cyclotron resonance ion source was used for the RFQ commissioning. In off-line beam testing, we found excellent coincidence of the measured beam parameters with the results of beam dynamics simulations performed using the beam dynamics code TRACK, which was developed at Argonne. These results demonstrate the great success of the RFQ design and fabrication technology developed here, which can be applied to future CW RFQs.

Numerical simulations of H^{-} stripping losses from blackbody radiation, electromagnetic fields, and residual gas have been implemented into the beam dynamics code TRACK. Estimates of the stripping losses along two high-intensity H^{-} linacs are presented: the Spallation Neutron Source linac currently being operated at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and an 8 GeV superconducting linac currently being designed at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

To meet the beam power requirements for high-intensity ion linacs being proposed for rare isotope beam production and other nuclear physics applications, we have developed an injector system to extract, accelerate, analyze, and recombine multiple charge states of any heavy-ion beam. The injector consists of an electron cyclotron resonance ion source, a 100 kV platform and an achromatic low-energy beam transport system. Two charge states of bismuth-209 (20+ and 21+) were successfully accelerated by the high-voltage platform potential, separated and perfectly recombined in the transverse phase space with 100% transmission. The perfect recombination and maximum transmission of the cw beam are essential for smooth injection into a subsequent rf accelerator.

This paper presents designs for four types of very-low-velocity superconducting (SC) accelerating cavity capable of providing several MV of accelerating potential per cavity, and suitable for particle velocities in the range 0.006

Beam acceleration in the International Linear Collider (ILC) will be provided by 9-cell 1300 MHz superconducting (SC) cavities. The cavities are designed for effective acceleration of charged particles moving with the speed of light and are operated on π-mode to provide a maximum accelerating gradient. A significant research and development effort has been devoted to develop ILC SC technology and its rf system which resulted in excellent performance of ILC cavities. Therefore, the proposed 8-GeV proton driver in Fermilab is based on ILC cavities above ∼1.2 GeV. The efficiency of proton beam acceleration by ILC cavities drops fast for lower velocities and it was proposed to develop squeezed ILC-type (S-ILC) cavities operating at 1300 MHz and designed for β_{G}=0.81, geometrical beta, to accelerate protons or H^{-} from ∼420 MeV to 1.2 GeV. This paper discusses the possibility of avoiding the development of new β_{G}=0.81 cavities by operating ILC cavities on 8/9π-mode of standing wave oscillations.

The design and operation support of hadron (proton and heavy-ion) linear accelerators require substantial use of beam dynamics simulation tools. The beam dynamics code TRACK has been originally developed at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) to fulfill the special requirements of the rare isotope accelerator (RIA) accelerator systems. From the beginning, the code has been developed to make it useful in the three stages of a linear accelerator project, namely, the design, commissioning, and operation of the machine. To realize this concept, the code has unique features such as end-to-end simulations from the ion source to the final beam destination and automatic procedures for tuning of a multiple charge state heavy-ion beam. The TRACK code has become a general beam dynamics code for hadron linacs and has found wide applications worldwide. Until recently, the code has remained serial except for a simple parallelization used for the simulation of multiple seeds to study the machine errors. To speed up computation, the TRACK Poisson solver has been parallelized. This paper discusses different parallel models for solving the Poisson equation with the primary goal to extend the scalability of the code onto 1024 and more processors of the new generation of supercomputers known as BlueGene (BG/L). Domain decomposition techniques have been adapted and incorporated into the parallel version of the TRACK code. To demonstrate the new capabilities of the parallelized TRACK code, the dynamics of a 45 mA proton beam represented by 10^{8} particles has been simulated through the 325 MHz radio frequency quadrupole and initial accelerator section of the proposed FNAL proton driver. The results show the benefits and advantages of large-scale parallel computing in beam dynamics simulations.

A new procedure has been developed for automatic longitudinal tuning of a multiple-charge-state heavy-ion beam. It uses a matrix-based code to track the beam centroids and Twiss parameters of the individual charge state beams and a minimization code to minimize a goal function by adjusting the synchronous phases and field levels in the accelerating cavities. The procedure has been successfully tested in the case of the Rare Isotope Accelerator driver linac and proven to improve an original manual tune by significantly reducing beam losses. The procedure was also applied for fast retuning of the linac after one or more cavity failure and restoring the beam with limited beam loss.

The proposed Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA) Facility, an innovative exotic-beam facility for the production of high-quality beams of short-lived isotopes, consists of a fully superconducting 1.4 GV driver linac and a 140 MV postaccelerator. To produce sufficient intensities of secondary beams the driver linac will provide 400 kW primary beams of any ion from hydrogen to uranium. Because of the high intensity of the primary beams the beam losses must be minimized to avoid radioactivation of the accelerator equipment. To keep the power deposited by the particles lost on the accelerator structures below 1 W/m, the relative beam losses per unit length should be less than 10^{-5}, especially along the high-energy section of the linac. A new beam dynamics simulation code TRACK has been developed and used for beam loss studies in the RIA driver linac. In the TRACK code, ions are tracked through the three-dimensional electromagnetic fields of every element of the linac starting from the electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source to the production target. The simulation starts with a multicomponent dc ion beam extracted from the ECR. The space charge forces are included in the simulations. They are especially important in the front end of the driver linac. Beam losses are studied by tracking a large number of particles (up to 10^{6}) through the whole linac considering all sources of error such us element misalignments, rf field errors, and stripper thickness fluctuations. For each configuration of the linac, multiple sets of error values have been randomly generated and used in the calculations. The results are then combined to calculate important beam parameters, estimate beam losses, and characterize the corresponding linac configuration. To track a large number of particles for a comprehensive number of error sets (up to 500), the code TRACK was parallelized and run on the Jazz computer cluster at ANL.

The applicability of superconducting TEM-class spoke cavities to high-energy ion linacs is discussed, and detailed designs for two TEM-class, triple-spoke-loaded superconducting niobium resonant cavities are presented. The 345 MHz cavities have a velocity range of 0.4

Beam-bunch arrival time has been measured for the first time by operating superconducting cavities, normally part of the linac accelerator array, in a bunch-detecting mode. The very high Q of the superconducting cavities provides high sensitivity and allows for phase-detecting low-current beams. In detecting mode, the resonator is operated at a very low field level comparable to the field induced by the bunched beam. Because of this, the rf field in the cavity is a superposition of a “pure” (or reference) rf and the beam-induced signal. A new method of circular phase rotation (CPR), allowing extraction of the beam phase information from the composite rf field was developed. Arrival time phase determination with CPR is better than 1° (at 48 MHz) for a beam current of 100 nA. The electronics design is described and experimental data are presented.

The nuclear science community considers the construction of the Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA) facility as a top priority. The RIA includes a 1.4 GV superconducting linac for production of 400 kW cw heavy ion beams. The initial acceleration of heavy ions delivered from an electron cyclotron resonance ion source can be effectively performed by a 57.5 MHz 4-m long room temperature RFQ. The principal specifications of the RFQ are (i) formation of extremely low longitudinal emittance, (ii) stable operation over a wide range of voltage for acceleration of various ion species needed for RIA operation, and (iii) simultaneous acceleration of two-charge states of uranium ions. cw operation of an accelerating structure leads to a number of requirements for the resonators such as high shunt impedance, efficient water cooling of all parts of the resonant cavity, mechanical stability together with precise alignment, reliable rf contacts, a stable operating mode, and fine tuning of the resonant frequency during operation. To satisfy these requirements a new resonant structure has been developed. This paper discusses the beam dynamics and electrodynamics design of the RFQ cavity, as well as some aspects of the mechanical design of the low-frequency cw RFQ.

The Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA) facility project includes a cw 1.4 GeV driver linac and a 100 MV postaccelerator both based on superconducting (SC) cavities operating at frequencies from 48 to 805 MHz. In these linacs more than 99% of the total voltage is provided by SC cavities. An initial acceleration is provided by room temperature radio frequency quadrupoles. The driver linac is designed for acceleration of any ion species, from protons up to 900 MeV to uranium up to 400 MeV/u. The novel feature of the driver linac is an acceleration of multiple charge-state heavy-ion beams in order to achieve 400 kW beam power. This paper presents design features of a medium-energy SC heavy-ion linac taking the RIA driver linac as an example. The dynamics of single and multiple charge-state beams are detailed, including the effects of possible errors in rf field parameters and misalignments of transverse focusing elements. The important design considerations of such linac are presented. Several new conceptual solutions in beam dynamics in SC accelerating structures for heavy-ion applications are discussed.

Superconducting cavities presently used for acceleration of ions in velocity range ∼0.01c to 0.3c (where c is the speed of light) are based on quarter-wave resonators. Currently there are several design proposals in nuclear physics laboratories for application of this type of cavity for acceleration of light and heavy ions. The operating frequencies of the cavities range from ∼50 to 360 MHz to satisfy various specifications. Electrodynamics studies of the field distributions in the beam-cavity interaction area indicate appreciable dipole components of both electric and magnetic fields, especially for higher-frequency cavities. The dipole fields induce beam steering, which is a strong function of rf phase and which couples the longitudinal and transverse motion. This can result in growth in the transverse emittance of the beam. In this paper, we propose two possible methods for the correction of such dynamic beam-steering effects in quarter-wave resonators. We analyze and discuss the correction methods for the particular examples of two quarter-wave resonators operating at 57.5 and 115 MHz designed for the driver linac of the Rare Isotope Accelerator facility.

An advanced facility for the production of nuclei far from stability could be based on a high-power driver accelerator providing ion beams over the full mass range from protons to uranium. A beam power of several hundred kilowatts is highly desirable for this application. At present, however, the beam power available for the heavier ions would be limited by ion source capabilities. A simple and cost-effective method to enhance the available beam current would be to accelerate multiple charge states through a superconducting ion linac. This paper presents results of numerical simulation of multiple charge state beams through a 1.3 GeV ion linac, the design of which is based on current state-of-the-art superconducting elements. The dynamics of multiple charge state beams are detailed, including the effects of possible errors in rf field parameters and misalignments of transverse focusing elements. The results indicate that operation with multiple charge state beams is not only feasible but straightforward and can increase the beam current by a factor of 3 or more.