Commissioning the Front End Test Stand High Performance H- Ion Source at RAL

The RAL Front End Test Stand (FETS) is being constructed to demonstrate a chopped H- beam of up to 60 mA at 3 MeV with 50 p.p.s. and sufficiently high beam quality for future high-power proton accelerators (HPPA). High power proton accelerators with beam powers in the several megawatt range have many applications including drivers for spallation neutron sources, neutrino factories, waste transmuters and tritium production facilities. The aim of the FETS project is to demonstrate that chopped low energy beams of high quality can be produced and is intended to allow generic experiments exploring a variety of operational conditions. This paper details the first stage of construction- the installation and commissioning of the ion source. Initial performance figures are reported.