• S. Henderson
  ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) will be the world's leading pulsed neutron source, with design beam power capability of 1.4 MW. The SNS Construction Project was completed in June 2006. The accelerator complex was successfully commissioned during the construction phase of the project in seven discrete commissioning runs. The facility is now in the first of a three year performance ramp-up phase, in which the beam power, reliability and operating time will be increased to the baseline design values of 1.4 MW, 90% and 5000 hours respectively. Meanwhile, neutron scattering instruments are being constructed and commissioned in preparation for full user operations in 2009. The progress toward bringing the SNS to its full capabilities will be presented.

• R. C. McCrady, R. J. Macek, S. B. Walbridge, T. Zaugg
  LANL, Los Alamos, New Mexico
• S. Assadi, C. Deibele, S. Henderson, M. A. Plum
  ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
• J. M. Byrd
  LBNL, Berkeley, California
• S.-Y. Lee
  IUCF, Bloomington, Indiana
• M. T.F. Pivi
  SLAC, Menlo Park, California

A prototype of an analog, transverse (vertical) feedback system for active damping of the two-stream (e-p) instability has been developed and successfully tested at the Los Alamos National Laboratory Proton Storage Ring (PSR). This system was able to improve the instability threshold by approximately 30% (as measured by the change in RF buncher voltage at instability threshold). Evidence obtained from these tests suggests that further improvement in performance is limited by beam leakage into the gap at lower RF buncher voltage and the onset of instability in the horizontal plane, which had no feedback. Here we describe the present system configuration, system optimization, results of several recent experimental tests, and results from studies of factors limiting its performance.

• D. Stout, S. Assadi, I. E. Campisi, F. Casagrande, M. T. Crofford, W. R. DeVan, X. Geng, T. W. Hardek, S. Henderson, M. P. Howell, Y. W. Kang, W. C. Stone, W. H. Strong, D. C. Williams, P. A. Wright
  ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

The SNS project was completed with only limited SRF facilities installed as part of the project, namely a 5 MW, 805 MHz RF test stand, a fundamental power coupler processing system, a concrete test cave shell, and temporary cleaning/assembly facilities. A concerted effort has been initiated to install the infrastructure and equipment necessary to maintain and repair the superconducting Linac, and to support power upgrade R&D. Installation of a Class10/100/10,000 cleanroom and outfitting of the test cave with RF, vacuum, controls, personnel protection and cryogenics systems is underway. A horizontal cryostat, which can house a helium vessel/cavity and fundamental power coupler for full power, pulsed testing, is being procured. Equipment for cryomodule assembly/disassembly and cavity processing also is being designed. This effort, while derived from the experience of the SRF community, will provide a unique high power test capability as well as long term maintenance capabilities. This paper presents the current status and the future plans for the SNS SRF facilities.

• J. Galambos, A. V. Aleksandrov, C. K. Allen, S. Henderson, T. A. Pelaia, A. P. Shishlo, Y. Zhang
  ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
• P. Chu
  SLAC, Menlo Park, California

The Accelerator Physics group at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) has developed numerous codes to assist in the beam commissioning, tuning, and operation of the SNS Linac. These codes have been key to meeting the beam commissioning milestones. For example, a recently developed code provides for rapid retuning of the superconducting Linac in case of RF stations going offline or coming online. Highlights of these "physics applications" will be presented.

• A. V. Aleksandrov, S. Assadi, W. Blokland, P. Chu, S. M. Cousineau, V. V. Danilov, C. Deibele, J. Galambos, S. Henderson, D.-O. Jeon, M. A. Plum, A. P. Shishlo, M. P. Stockli, Y. Zhang
  ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

The Spallation Neutron Source accelerator systems will deliver a 1.0 GeV, 1.4 MW proton beam to a liquid mercury target for neutron scattering research. The accelerator complex consists of an H^- injector, capable of producing one-ms-long pulses at 60 Hz repetition rate with 38 mA peak current, a 1 GeV linear accelerator, an accumulator ring and associated transport lines. The 2.5 MeV beam from the Front End is accelerated to 86 MeV in the Drift Tube Linac, then to 185 MeV in a Coupled-Cavity Linac and finally to 1 GeV in the Superconducting Linac. With the completion of beam commissioning, the accelerator complex began operation in June 2006 and beam power is being gradually ramped up toward the design goal. Operational experience with the injector and linac will be presented including chopper performance, transverse emittance evolution along the linac, and the results of a beam loss study.

• C. Deibele, S. Assadi, V. V. Danilov, S. Henderson, M. A. Plum, A. K. Polisetti
  ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
• J. M. Byrd
  LBNL, Berkeley, California
• J. D. Gilpatrick, R. C. McCrady, J. F. Power, T. Zaugg
  LANL, Los Alamos, New Mexico
• S.-Y. Lee
  IUCF, Bloomington, Indiana
• M. T.F. Pivi
  SLAC, Menlo Park, California
• M. J. Schulte, Z. P. Xie
  UW-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin

A prototype of an analog, transverse (vertical) feedback system for active damping of the two-stream (e-p) instability has been developed and successfully tested at the Los Alamos Proton Storage Ring (PSR). This talk describes the system configuration, results of several experimental tests and studies of system optimization along with studies of the factors limiting its performance.

• I. E. Campisi, S. Assadi, F. Casagrande, M. S. Champion, M. T. Crofford, G. W. Dodson, J. Galambos, M. Giannella, S. Henderson, M. P. Howell, Y. W. Kang, K.-U. Kasemir, S.-H. Kim, Z. Kursun, P. Ladd, H. Ma, D. Stout, W. H. Strong, Y. Zhang
  ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

The Superconducting Linac at SNS has been operating with beam for almost two years. As the first operational pulsed superconducting linac, many of the aspect of its performance were unknown and unpredictable. A lot of experience has been gathered during the commissioning of its components, during the beam turn on and during operation at increasingly higher beam power. Some cryomodules have been cold for well over two years and have been extensively tested. The operation has been consistently conducted at 4.4 K and 10 and 15 pulses per second, with some cryomodules tested at 30 and 60 pps and some tests performed at 2 K. Careful balance between safe operational limits and the study of conditions, parameters and components that create physical limits has been achieved. This paper presents the experience and the performance of the superconducting cavities and of the associated systems with and without beam.

• Y. Zhang, I. E. Campisi, C. Deibele, J. Galambos, S. Henderson, Y. W. Kang, H. Ma, J. L. Wilson
  ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Beam phase measurement based on detection of transient beam loading signal in a Superconducting (SC) cavity is utilized to setup the cavity synchronous phase. It has the potential to become a fast tune-up technique for a high intensity SC electron linac, as cavity phase could be determined precisely with only a few beam pulses. The paper introduces a transient detector study in the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) proton linac, and discusses one of the major challenges - stochastic noise in the cavity RF system, which deteriorates the precision and increases the time needed for phase measurement with this technique. We analyze the influence of RF noise to the phase measurement in a simulation study with a beam-cavity model. Beam signal measurement with the cavity Low Level RF (LLRF) system and the initial experiment of prototype detectors are briefly introduced.

• V. V. Danilov, A. V. Aleksandrov, S. Assadi, W. Blokland, S. M. Cousineau, C. Deibele, W. P. Grice, S. Henderson, J. A. Holmes, Y. Liu, M. A. Plum, A. P. Shishlo, A. Webster
  ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
• I. Nesterenko
  BINP SB RAS, Novosibirsk
• L. Waxer
  LJW, Saint Louis

Thin carbon foils are used as strippers for charge exchange injection into high intensity proton rings. However, the stripping foils become radioactive and produce uncontrolled beam loss, which is one of the main factors limiting beam power in high intensity proton rings. Recently, we presented a scheme for laser stripping an H^- beam for the Spallation Neutron Source ring. First, H^- atoms are converted to H0 by a magnetic field, then H0 atoms are excited from the ground state to the upper levels by a laser, and the excited states are converted to protons by a magnetic field. In this paper we report on the first successful proof-of-principle demonstration of this scheme to give high efficiency (around 90%) conversion of H^- beam into protons at SNS in Oak Ridge. The experimental setup is described, and comparison of the experimental data with simulations is presented. In addition, future plans on building a practical laser stripping device are discussed.

• A. Feschenko, L. V. Kravchuk, A. A. Menshov
  RAS/INR, Moscow
• A. V. Aleksandrov, S. Assadi, J. Galambos, S. Henderson
  ORNL, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

SNS Linac utilizes several accelerating structures operating at two frequencies. CCL and SCL operate at 805 MHz while 402.5 MHz is used for RFQ and DTL. Beam transfer from the previous part of the accelerator to the subsequent one requires careful longitudinal matching to improve beam transmission and to minimize beam losses. Longitudinal beam parameters have been investigated with the help of three Bunch Shape Monitors installed in the intersegments of the first CCL Module. The results of bunch shape observations for different accelerator settings are presented. Longitudinal beam emittance has been measured and optimized. Longitudinal beam halo has been evaluated as well.