Status of radio frequency quadrupole accelerator at IUAC, New Delhi

As part of the accelerator augmentation program at IUAC, a High Current Injector (HCI) is being developed to inject highly charged ions into the superconducting LINAC. The HCI consists of a superconducting (High TC) ECR source, producing the high currents of highly charged ions. The ion beams produced will be injected into a Radio Frequency Quadrupole Accelerator (RFQ) and be accelerated to 180 keV/u. RF power of about 100 kW at 48.5 MHz will be fed to the RFQ during its actual working. The ions will be further accelerated by a Drift Tube Linac (DTL), before being further velocity matched with a low beta cavity into the superconducting LINAC. RFQ at IUAC is a four rod cavity structure having individual demountable copper vanes held on vane posts with a total vane length of 2.536 m and a minimum aperture of 12mm. The vane posts hold twenty nos. of vanes. Water will flow into vanes through the vane posts. The copper plated stainless steel vacuum housing has been divided into two chambers for the ease of fabrication and copper plating. The RFQ stand has provision for alignment in all the three axes. After successfully validating all the electrical and mechanical design parameters on a prototype RFQ, the fabrication of final RFQ has been completed. Initial assembly to check the mechanical accuracies was carried out. Low power RF tests were conducted to validate the design parameters. The resonance frequency of the RFQ was measured as 44.12 MHz and Q value was measured ∼ 5500. The final assembly is in progress. This paper details the present status and future plan of RFQ. (author)