Beam dynamics in a rebunching CH cavity with high space charge

The Frankfurt Neutron Source at the Stern-Gerlach-Zentrum (FRANZ) will provide ultra short neutron pulses at high intensities and repetition rates. The facility is under construction with expected first beam in 2013. It will allow research on nucleosynthesis of elements in stars by the s-process as well as on neutron capture cross sections for activation experiments providing knowledge gain on transmutation of radioactive waste and fusion reactor materials. The 5-gap CH rebuncher is installed behind a coupled RFQ/IH-DTL combination and completes the LINAC section. It will be used for varying the output energy between 1.8 and 2.2 MeV as well as for focusing the proton beam bunch longitudinally to compensate the huge space charge forces at high currents up to 200 mA. Therefore beam dynamics and beam transport performance research on this CH cavity is under progress. It includes benchmarking of different beam dynamic codes like LORASR, TraceWin and a new particle-in-cell tracking code for non-relativistic beams currently under development at IAP as well as validation of the results by measurements. Furthermore, this CH rebuncher serves as prototype for CH cavity operation at MYRRHA (Mol, Belgium), an Accelerator Driven System (ADS) for transmutation of high level nuclear waste.