JLab, Newport News, Virginia, USA
The Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) 12 GeV upgrade reached its design energy in December of 2015. Since then CEBAF has been delivering 12 GeV beam to experimental Hall D and 11 GeV to experimental halls A and B in support of Nuclear physics. To meet this energy goal, ten new 100 MV cryomodules (80 cavities) and RF systems were installed in 2013. The superconducting RF cavities are designed to operate CW at a average accelerating gradient of 19.2 MV/m. To support the higher gradients and higher QL (3.2×107) operations, the RF system uses 13 kW klystrons and digital LLRF to power and control each cavity. This paper reports on the C100 operation and optimization improvements of the RF system and cryomodules.
JLab, Newport News, Virginia, USA
SRF accelerating cavities are often operated in superfluid helium of temperature near 2 K to enhance the cavity quality factor Q0 and manage cryogenic heat loads, which are particularly important at large SRF accelerator facilities. This temperature paradigm, however, need not put SRF technology out of the reach of small institutions or even limit SRF operation at large facilities to provide 10-100 MeV beam energy. At the Jefferson Lab CEBAF accelerator there are regularly scheduled maintenance periods during which the liquid helium temperature is raised to 4 K, reducing cryogenic plant power consumption by ~50% and saving megawatts of electrical power. During such a recent period, we accelerated a continuous-wave electron beam at the CEBAF photo-injector to 6.3 MeV/c with current ~80μA using two niobium cavities at helium temperature of 4 K. This contribution describes the SRF and cryogenic performance and uses measured beam quality and energy stability as key metrics. These measurements indicate that 4 K operation of niobium SRF cavities in CEBAF and at small institutions may be a sensible and cost effective mode of operation, provided the cryogenic load associated with lower Q0 is manageable for the number of SRF cavities needed. For Jefferson Lab, this enhances our scientific reach allowing additional low-energy ~10 MeV experiments each year.