25 May 2019
The proton characterization at 2.5 MeV was completed on April 30, 2019 (Phase B1). During this phase, with an extracted current of 88 mA and 300 µs maximum pulse length from the injector, a maximum current of 57 mA was accelerated in the Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) with a transmission of 93 % through RFQ and beam transport line up to the Low Power Beam Dump (LPBD).
The RFQ was conditioned for proton level operation, which requires a field of about 70 kV to accelerate the protons. In the case of the deuteron operation (next phase B2, and nominal condition of the machine), the cavity needs to be conditioned to reach a maximum field of 142 kV. The conditioning is still on-going to reach that field level with pulses up to 300 µs.
The Beam Instrumentation has also demonstrated to be operational. Further improvements are ongoing which should ease beam operation and allow data analysis with comparison to beam dynamics models.
As an example, the above figure on the left shows the measurement of beam profiles, providing the shape of the beam. On the right, the beam position in space is monitored.