High-power test of annular-ring coupled structures for the J-PARC linac energy upgrade

Abstract

Annular-ring coupled structures (ACSs) will increase the beam energy of the Japan proton accelerator research complex (J-PARC) linac from 181 to 400 MeV to achieve a beam power of 1 MW for a materials and life science experimental facility. The mass production of the ACS cavities commenced in March 2009. Before the installation, all cavities require power testing. High-power testing is essential not only for confirming the cavity’s design performance but also for preventing delays in cavity conditioning schedule. However, the 2011 Tohoku earthquake damaged J-PARC facilities, including the ACS power-test area, and cavity conditioning was interrupted for two years. After the facility’s restoration, two ACS cavities (M01 and M11) were conditioned. They performed 15–20% above the designed accelerating field of 4.2 MV/m. As M01 was initially conditioned six years ago, the most recent conditioning time required for M01 was drastically reduced. From this result, we confirmed that long-term stored ACS cavities purged with nitrogen gas do not produce critical cavity performance issues. During high-power operation of M11, which is a unique cavity equipped with a capacitive iris in a waveguide, no significant increases in the temperature and the discharge rate around the capacitive iris were observed. Even considering beam loss due to residual gas scattering, the vacuum pressure was sufficiently low (4 × 10⁻⁶ Pa). More stable operation can be expected following a month-long conditioning process before the beam is commissioned. M11’s conditioning successfully demonstrated an auto-conditioning program, and we established the conditioning scheme using this auto-conditioning program for all ACS cavities in a limited time and with limited manpower.