High-power linac for a US spallation-neutron source

We present status of high-power linac design studies for a proposed National Spallation Neutron Source (NSNS), based on a linac/accumulator-ring accelerator system. Overall project is a collaboration involving 5 national laboratories. ORNL will be responsible for the target, facilities, and conceptual design; BNL will be responsible for the ring; LBNL will be responsible for the injector, including the RFQ and a low-energy chopper in front of the RFQ; LANL will be responsible for the main linac; and ANL will be responsible for the instrumentation. The facility will be built at Oak Ridge. In the first phase, the dual-frequency linac with 402.5 and 805 MHz frequencies must deliver to the accumulator ring an H- beam near 1 GeV, with about 1 ms pulse length, a repetition rate 60 Hz, and average beam power ≥ 1 MW. The linac can be upgraded by a factor of 4 in beam power by increasing the dc injector current, and by funneling the beams from two 402.5 MHz low-energy linacs into the 805-MHz high-energy linac. Requirements for low beam loss in both linac and ring have important implications for linac design, including the requirement to provide efficient beam chopping to provide low-loss extraction for the ring. Linac design options and initial parameters are presented together with initial beam-dynamics simulation results