The status of the SNS external antenna ion source and spare RFQ test facility

• Published in: Review of scientific instruments Vol. 87; no. 2; p. 02B146
• Main Authors: Welton, R F, Aleksandrov, A V, Dudnikov, V G, Han, B X, Kang, Y, Murray, S N, Pennisi, T R, Piller, C, Santana, M, Stockli, M P
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.02.2016
• ISSN: 1089-7623
• DOI: 10.1063/1.4935236

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory operates the Spallation Neutron Source, consisting of a H(-) ion source, a 1 GeV linac and an accumulator ring. The accumulated <1 μs-long, ∼35 A beam pulses are extracted from the ring at 60 Hz and directed onto a liquid Hg target. Spalled neutrons are directed to ∼20 world class instruments. Currently, the facility operates routinely with ∼1.2 MW of average beam power, which soon will be raised to 1.4 MW. A future upgrade with a second target station calls for raising the power to 2.8 MW. This paper describes the status of two accelerator components expected to play important roles in achieving these goals: a recently acquired RFQ accelerator and the external antenna ion source. Currently, the RFQ is being conditioned in a newly constructed 2.5 MeV Integrated Test Facility (ITF) and the external antenna source is also being tested on a separate test stand. This paper presents the results of experiments and the testing of these systems.