Development of a radio frequency quadrupole linac implemented with the equipartitioning beam dynamics scheme

Abstract

Radio frequency quadrupole linac (RFQ) is the key component which realized modern high-current proton linacs, however, many RFQs are designed based on very conventional design schemes. We developed 3-MeV 50-mA H^{-} (negative hydrogen) RFQ based on a beam space-charge physics concept. The equipartitioning scheme, which is widely used in the high intensity linac design, is implemented into the RFQ design. Design performances of 99.1% transmission, 0.24π mm mrad transverse normalized rms emittance, and 0.11π MeV deg for longitudinal direction are achieved with a vane length of 3 m and the final energy of 3 MeV. An RFQ employing this design concept was fabricated, and the design performance was confirmed by beam commissioning. In this paper, the design and result of the beam commissioning of this fully equipartitioned RFQ are described.