Experimental test of a new antiproton acceleration scheme in the Fermilab Main Injector

In an effort to provide higher intensity and lower emittance antiproton beam to the Tevatron collider for high luminosity operation, a new Main Injector (MI) antiproton acceleration scheme has been developed [1-4]. In this scheme, beam is accelerated from 8 to 27 GeV using the 2.5 MHz rf system and from 27 to 150 GeV using the 53 MHz rf system. This paper reports the experimental results of beam study. Simulation results are reported in a different PAC'05 paper [5]. Experiments are conducted with proton beam from the Booster. Acceleration efficiency, emittance growth and beam harmonic transfer between 2.5 MHz (h=28) and 53 MHz (h=588) buckets have been studied. Beam study shows that one can achieve an overall acceleration efficiency of about 100%, longitudinal emittance growth less than 20% and negligible transverse emittance growth. accelerated to 150 GeV and injected to the Tevatron. The multi-bunch coalescing process is eliminated in this acceleration scheme. Consequently, longitudinal emittance growth is reduced. Smaller emittance growth reduces beam loss