Argonne superconducting heavy-ion linac

A summary is given of the status of a project to develop and build a small superconducting linac to boost the energy of heavy ions from an existing tandem electrostatic accelerator. The design of the system is well advanced, and construction of major components is expected to start in late 1976. The linac will consist of independently-phased resonators of the split-ring type made of niobium and operating at a temperature of 4.20K. The resonance frequency is 97 MHz. Tests on full-scale resonators lead one to expect accelerating fields of approximately 4 MV/m within the resonators. The linac will be long enough to provide a voltage gain of at least 13.5 MV, which will allow ions with A less than or approximately 80 to be accelerated above the Coulomb barrier of any target. The modular nature of the system will make future additions to the length relatively easy. A major design objective is to preserve the good quality of the tandem beam. This requires an exceedingly narrow beam pulse, which is achieved by bunching both before and after the tandem. Focusing by means of superconducting solenoids within the linac limit the radial size of the beam. An accelerating structure some 15 meters downstream from the linac will manipulate the longitudinal phase ellipse so as to provide the experimenter with either very good energy resolution (ΔE/E approximately equal to 2 x 10-4) or very good time resolution