The LHC superconducting cavities

• Published in: Proceedings of the 1999 Particle Accelerator Conference (Cat. No.99CH36366) Vol. 2; pp. 946 - 948 vol.2
• Main Authors: Boussard, D., Chiaveri, E., Haebel, E., Kindermann, H.P., Losito, R., Marque, S., Rodel, V., Stirbet, M.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 1999
• Subjects: Acceleration; Couplers; Helium; Large Hadron Collider; Manufacturing industries; Particle beams; Prototypes; Radio frequency; Temperature; Testing
• ISBN: 0780355733; 9780780355736
• DOI: 10.1109/PAC.1999.795409

The LHC RF system, which must handle high intensity (0.5 A d.c.) beams, makes use of superconducting single-cell cavities, best suited to minimizing the effects of periodic transient beam loading. There will be eight cavities per beam, each capable of delivering 2 MV (5 MV/m accelerating field) at 400 MHz. The cavities themselves are now being manufactured by industry, using niobium-on-copper technology which gives full satisfaction at LEP. A cavity unit includes a helium tank (4.5 K operating temperature) built around a cavity cell, RF and HOM couplers and a mechanical tuner, all housed in a modular cryostat. Four-unit modules are ultimately foreseen for the LHC (two per beam), while at present a prototype version with two complete units is being extensively tested. In addition to a detailed description of the cavity and its ancillary equipment, the first test results of the prototype are reported.