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The data of neutron capture cross section are very important for the research of nuclear astrophysics, advanced nuclear energy development. Owing to the limitation of neutron source and detector, the experimental data of neutron capture cross section in an energy range of 1 eV–10 keV were almost blank in China. The first Chinese gamma-ray total absorption facility has been constructed in the key laboratory of nuclear data at China institute of atomic energy, which consists of 40 BaF2 detector units. The BaF2 crystal shell with a thickness of 15 cm and an inner radius of 10 cm covers 95.2% of the solid angle. On-line measurement method of neutron capture reaction cross section is established on the back-streaming white neutron source of China spallation neutron source by using the upgraded facility. The cross section of 197Au neutron capture reaction is measured for the first time under the experimental condition of irregular 30 mm neutron beam spot. The measured position of resonance peak is well consistent with the relevant data of ENDF evaluation database, which verifies the reliability of the measurement device and measurement technology, and thus laying the foundation for the acquisition of high precision cross section in future.

The back-streaming neutron beam line (Back-n) was built in the beginning of 2018, which is part of the China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS). The Back-n is the first white neutron beam line in China, and its main application is for nuclear data measurement. For most of neutron-induced nuclear reaction measurements based on white neutron facilities, the beam of gamma rays accompanied with neutron beam is one of the most important experimental backgrounds. The back streaming neutron beam is transported directly from the spallation target to the experimental station without any moderator or shielding, the flux of the in-beam gamma rays in the experimental station is much larger than those of these facilities with neutron moderator and shielding. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the influence of in-beam gamma rays on the experimental results. Studies of the in-beam gamma rays are carried out at the back-n. Monte-Carlo simulation is employed to obtain the energy distribution and the time structure of the in-beam gamma rays. According to the simulation results, when the neutron flight time is longer than 1.0 μs the energy distribution of the in-beam gamma rays does not vary with flight time. Therefore, the time structure of these gamma rays can be measured without the correction of the detection efficiency. In this work, the time structure of the in-beam gamma rays in the low neutron energy region is measured by both direct and indirect methods. In the direct measurement, a 6Li loaded ZnS(Ag) scintillator is located on the neutron beam line and the time of flight method is used to determine the time structure of neutrons and gamma rays. The gamma rays are separated from neutrons with pulse-shape discrimination. The black filter method is used to verify the particle discrimination results. In the indirect measurement, the C6D6 scintillation detectors are used to measure the gamma rays scattered off a Pb sample on the way of the neutron beam. The time structure of the in-beam gamma rays is derived from that of the scattered gamma rays. The experimental results are in good agreement with the simulations with the time-of-flight between 12 μs and 2.0 ms. Besides, according to the simulation results, the intensity of the in-beam gamma rays is 1.21 × 106 s–1·cm–2 in the center of the experimental station 2 of Back-n, which is 76.5 m away from the spallation target of CSNS.

Emittance is an important characteristic of describing charged particle beams. In hadron accelerators, we often meet irregular beam distributions that are not appropriately described by a single rms emittance or 95% emittance or total emittance. In this paper it is pointed out that in many cases a b...

A conception design of the Advanced Proton Therapy Facility (APTF) has been carried out. The system intentionally employs a slow-cycling synchrotron with a maximum energy of 250 MeV, two rotating gantries and two fixed beam nozzles for the treatment. In this paper, we try to compare the strength and weaknesses between the two treatment methods: the beam spreading and the pencil beam scanning. The application of the pencil beam scanning method and the double-scattering method together with the related nozzle design at APTF is also given. The simulation results of employing the double-scattering method have been given during the preliminary design.

A proton therapy facility based on a linac injector and a slow cycling synchrotron is proposed. To achieve effective treatment of cancer, a scanning gantry is required. The flexible transmission of beam and high beam position accuracy are the most basic requirements for a gantry. The designed gantry optics and scanning system are presented. Great efforts are put into studying the sensitivity of the beam position in the isocenter to the element misalignments. It shows that quadrupole shift makes the largest contribution and special attention should be paid to it.

A proton therapy facility based on a linac injector and a slow-cycling synchrotron is proposed. To obtain good treatments for different cancer types, both the spot scanning method and the double-scattering method are adopted in the facility, whereas the nozzles include both gantry and fixed beam types. The proton accelerator chain includes a synchrotron of 250 MeV in maximum energy, an injector of 7 MeV consisting of an RFQ and a DTL linac, with a repetition rate of 0.5 Hz. The slow extraction using the third-order resonance and together with the RFKO method is considered to be a good method to obtain a stable and more-or-less homogenous beam spill. To benefit the spot scanning method, the extraction energy can be as many as about 200 between 60 MeV and 230 MeV. A new method - the emittance balancing technique of using a solenoid or a quadrupole rotator is proposed to solve the problem of unequal emittance in the two transverse planes with a beam slowly extracted from a synchrotron. The facility has been designed to keep the potential to be upgraded to include the carbon therapy in the future.

The betatron matching of a rotationally asymmetric beam in space charge dominated low-energy beam transports (LEBTs) where solenoids are used for the transverse matching has been studied. For better understanding, the coupling elements of a beam matrix are interpreted in special forms that are products of a term defined by the Larmor rotation angle and another by the difference between the beam matrix elements in the two transverse planes. The coupling form originally derived from the rotationally symmetric field in solenoids still holds when taking into account the rotationally asymmetric space charge forces that are due to the unequal emittance in the two transverse planes. It is shown in this paper that when an LEBT mainly comprising solenoids transports a beam having unequal emittance in the two transverse planes and the linear space charge force is taken into account, the initial Twiss parameters can be modified to obtain the minimum and equal emittance at the LEBT exit. The TRACE3D calculations also prove the principle. However, when quadrupoles that are also rotationally asymmetric are involved in between solenoids, the coupling between the two transverse planes becomes more complicated and the emittance increase is usually unavoidable. A matching example using the CSNS (China Spallation Neutron Source) LEBT conditions is also presented.

China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) is a high power proton accelerator-based facility. Uncontrolled beam loss is a major concern in designing the CSNS to control the radioactivation level. For the Rapid Cycling Synchrotron (RCS) of the CSNS, the repetition frequency is too high for the longitudinal motion to be fully adiabatic. Significant beam loss happens during the RF capture and initial acceleration of the injection period. To reduce the longitudinal beam loss, beam chopping and momentum offset painting methods are used in the RCS injection. This paper presents detailed studies on the longitudinal motion in the RCS by using the ORBIT simulations, which include different beam chopping factors, momentum offsets and RF voltage optimization. With a trade-off between the longitudinal beam loss and transverse incoherent tune shift that will also result in beam losses, optimized longitudinal painting schemes are obtained.

In this paper, two injection scenarios with different chopping rate are discussed. The waveforms of the RF voltage are studied and optimized, respectively. Some suggestions are made, concerning chopping and momentum painting of the injected beam. Furthermore, the momentum spread and transverse tune shift are calculated so that the beam aperture and the beam loss can be estimated. Finally, the beam loss with magnet field error is analyzed.

The storage of,long bunches for large time intervals needs flattened stationary buckets with a large bucket height. Collective effects from the space charge and resistive impedance are studied by looking at the incoherent particle motion for the matched and mismatched bunches. Increasing the RF amplitude with particle number provides r.m.s wise matching for modest intensities. The incoherent motion of large amplitude particles depends on the details of the RF system. The resulting debunching process is a combination of the too small full RF acceptance together with the mismatch, enhanced by the collective effects. Irregular single particle motion is not associated with the coherent dipole instability. For the stationary phase space distribution of the Hofmann-Pedersen approach and for the dual harmonic RF system, stability limits are presented, which are too low if using realistic input distributions. For single and dual harmonic RF system with d=0.31, the tracking results are shown for intensities, by a factor of 3 above the threshold values. Small resistive impedances lead to coherent oscillations around the equilibrium phase value, as energy loss by resistive impedance is compensated by the energy gain of the RF system.

The China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) is an accelerator-based facility. The accelerator of CSNS consists of a low energy linac, a Rapid Cycling Synchrotron (RCS) and two beam transport lines. The overall physics design of CSNS accelerator is described, including the design principle, the choice of the main parameters and design of each part of accelerators. The key problems of the physics design, such as beam loss and control, are also discussed. The interface between the different parts of accelerator, as well as between accelerator and target, are introduced.