SNS Partnerships:
Los Alamos National Laboratory
The Linac
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The superconducting linac.
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The SNS 1,000-foot linear accelerator,
shown from either end in this trick
photo, is actually nearly perfectly
straight, with an allowance of 7 millimeters
to compensate for the Earth's curvature.
In 2 microseconds, a proton
is accelerated down the linac from
a stop to nearly the speed of light.
Los
Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) was responsible for
the linear accelerator, or linac, which accelerates the negatively charged
hydrogen ion (H-) beam from 2.5 to 1000 million electron volts (MeV, or 1
GeV). The linac is a superposition of normal conducting and superconducting
radio-frequency cavities that accelerate the beam and a magnetic lattice that
provides focusing and steering.
Three different types of accelerators
are used at SNS. The first two, the
drift-tube linac and the coupled-cavity
linac, are made of copper, operate
at room temperature, and accelerate
the beam to about 200 MeV. The remainder
of the acceleration is accomplished
by superconducting niobium cavities,
which are the responsibility of Thomas
Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab).
These cavities are cooled with liquid
helium to an operating temperature
of 2 K. Diagnostic elements provide
information about the beam current,
shape, and timing, as well as other
information necessary to ensure that
the beam is suitable for injection
into the accumulator ring and to allow
the high-power beam to be controlled
safely.
To learn more . . .
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