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At least 793 records · Page 44
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Fast cycling HTS based superconducting accelerator magnets: Feasibility study and readiness demonstration program driven by neutrino physics and muon collider needs

Development of energy-efficient fast cycling accelerator magnets is critical for the next generation of proton rapid cycling synchrotrons (RCS) for neutrino research and booster accelerators of future muon colliders. We see a unique opportunity for having such magnets to be built on base of High Temperature Superconductors (HTS). Besides being superconducting at relatively high temperatures, rare-earth HTS tapes have shown very small AC losses compared to low-temperature NbTi superconductor cables. Recent tests of the HTS-based 0.5 m long two-bore superconducting accelerator magnet have shown record high dB/dt ramping rates of about 300 T/s at 10 Hz repetition rate and 0.5 T B-field span. No temperature rise in 6 K cooling He was observed within the 0.003 K error setting the upper limit on the cryogenic power loss in the magnet conductor coil to be less than 0.2 W/m. Based on this result we outline a possible upgrade of this test magnet design to 2 T B-field in the 10 mm beam gap with the dB/dt ramping rates up to 1000 T/s. The power test results of this short sample magnet will be used to project both cryogenic and electrical power losses as a function of the magnet B-field and the dB/dt ramping rates. Then these projections will be scaled to the range of expected accelerator magnet beam gaps and B-fields for the proton and muon RCS accelerators. We invite collaborators to join these studies and call for support of the R&D program aimed at comprehensive demonstration of this approach that includes design, construction, and power tests of a long prototype of the HTS-based fast-cycling accelerator magnet by 2028.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Fiber-optic diagnostic system for future accelerator magnets

The next generation high energy physics accelerators will require magnetic fields at ~20 T. HTS coils will be an essential component of future accelerator magnets and several efforts are currently dedicated on designing 20 T HTS- LTS hybrid magnets. Among the existing challenges, there is the lack of a robust quench detection system for hybrid magnet technology. Another big challenge is represented by the high number of training quenches required by Nb3Sn magnets to reach performance level. In this framework it is important to find a tool that allow local real-time monitoring of magnet strain and temperature. In this paper, we propose the use of fiber optics sensors for diagnostic and quench detection in future accelerator superconducting magnets. Discrete and distributed fiber optic sensors have demonstrated to be a promising tool. The goal is to instrument hundreds of accelerator superconducting magnets and to move beyond the proof-of-concept level. Significant developments are still needed. Here, we are going to present the most recent results and discuss the most urgent technical developments in order to make those sensors a robust and reliable diagnostic tool for accelerator superconducting magnets over the next 10 year. We foresee that discrete fiber sensors will be a stable diagnostic probe for superconducting magnets over the next 3 to 5 years. More R&D work will be necessary for distributed fibers. The most urgent needs are the increase of sample rate and sensitivity. Close collaboration with vendors will be necessary to improve mechanical properties and fabrication processes in order to produce hundreds of meters of fiber and instrument a large number of accelerator superconducting magnets. Those R&D efforts will last up to 10 years with a founding level that spans between 5-10 M$.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Applications of compact accelerator-driven neutron sources: An updated assessment from the perspective of materials research in Italy

In 2005 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna published a report [1] on ‘Development Opportunities of Small and Medium Scale Accelerator Driven Neutron Sources’ which summarized the prospect of smaller sources in supporting the large spallation neutron sources for materials characterization and instrumentation, a theme advocated by Bauer, Clausen, Mank, and Mulhauser in previous publications [2-4]. In 2010 the Union for Compact Accelerator-driven Neutron Sources (UCANS) was established [5], galvanizing cross-disciplinary collaborations on new source and neutronics development and expanded applications based on both slow-neutron scattering and other neutron-matter interactions of neutron energies ranging from 10⁻⁶ to 10² MeV [6]. Here, we first cover the recent development of ongoing and prospective projects of compact accelerator-driven neutron sources (CANS) but concentrate on prospective accelerators currently proposed in Italy. Two active R&D topics, irradiation effects on electronics and cultural heritage studies, are chosen to illustrate the impact of state-of-the-art CANS on these programs with respect to the characteristics and complementarity of the accelerator and neutronics systems as well as instrumentation development.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Laser-wakefield accelerators for high-resolution X-ray imaging of complex microstructures

Laser-wakefeld accelerators (LWFAs) are high acceleration-gradient plasma-based particle accelerators capable of producing ultra-relativistic electron beams. Within the strong focusing felds of the wakefeld, accelerated electrons undergo betatron oscillations, emitting a bright pulse of X-rays with a micrometer-scale source size that may be used for imaging applications. Non-destructive X-ray phase contrast imaging and tomography of heterogeneous materials can provide insight into their processing, structure, and performance. To demonstrate the imaging capability of X-rays from an LWFA we have examined an irregular eutectic in the aluminum-silicon (Al-Si) system. The lamellar spacing of the Al-Si eutectic microstructure is on the order of a few micrometers, thus requiring high spatial resolution. We present comparisons between the sharpness and spatial resolution in phase contrast images of this eutectic alloy obtained via X-ray phase contrast imaging at the Swiss Light Source (SLS) synchrotron and X-ray projection microscopy via an LWFA source. An upper bound on the resolving power of 2.7±0.3μm of the LWFA source in this experiment was measured. These results indicate that betatron X-rays from laser wakefeld acceleration can provide an alternative to conventional synchrotron sources for high resolution imaging of eutectics and, more broadly, complex microstructures.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2012

Optimized laser pulse profile for efficient radiation pressure acceleration of ions

The radiation pressure acceleration regime of laser ion acceleration requires high intensity laser pulses to function efficiently. Moreover the foil should be opaque for incident radiation during the interaction to ensure maximum momentum transfer from the pulse to the foil, which requires proper matching of the target to the laser pulse. However, in the ultrarela-tivistic regime, this leads to large acceleration distances, over which the high laser intensity for a Gaussian laser pulse must be maintained. It is shown that proper tailoring of the laser pulse profile can significantly reduce the acceleration distance, leading to a compact laser ion accelerator, requiring less energy to operate.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Prototyping of beam position monitor for medium energy beam transport section of RAON heavy ion accelerator

A heavy ion accelerator, RAON is going to be built by Rare Isotope Science Project in Korea. Its target is to accelerate various stable ions such as uranium, proton, and xenon from electron cyclotron resonance ion source and some rare isotopes from isotope separation on-line. The beam shaping, charge selection, and modulation should be applied to the ions from these ion sources because RAON adopts a superconducting linear accelerator structure for beam acceleration. For such treatment, low energy beam transport, radio frequency quadrupole, and medium energy beam transport (MEBT) will be installed in injector part of RAON accelerator. Recently, development of a prototype of stripline beam position monitor (BPM) to measure the position of ion beams in MEBT section is under way. In this presentation, design of stripline, electromagnetic (EM) simulation results, and RF measurement test results obtained from the prototyped BPM will be described.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2020

Experimental demonstration of externally driven millimeter-wave particle accelerator structure

We report the experimental demonstration of a mm-wave electron accelerating structure powered by a high-power rf source. We demonstrate reliable coupling of an unprecedented rf power—up to 575kW into the mm-wave accelerator structure using a quasi-optical setup. This standing wave accelerating structure consists of a single-cell copper cavity and a Gaussian to TM 01 mode converter. The accelerator structure is powered by 110 GHz, 10-ns long rf pulses. These pulses are chopped from 3 microsecond pulses from a gyrotron oscillator using a laser-driven silicon switch. We show an unprecedented high gradient up to 230MV/m that corresponds to a peak surface electric field of more than 520 MV/m. We have achieved these results after conditioning the cavity with more than 100,000 pulses. We also report preliminary measurements of rf breakdown rates, which are important for understanding rf breakdown physics in the millimeter-wave regime. Furthermore, these results open up many frontiers for applications not only limited to the next generation particle accelerators but also x-ray generation, probing material dynamics, and nonlinear light-matter interactions at mm-wave frequency.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Terawatt attosecond x-ray source driven by a plasma accelerator

Plasma accelerators can generate ultra-high-brightness electron beams that open the door to light sources with a smaller physical footprint and properties un-achievable with conventional accelerator technology. In this paper, we show that electron beams from Plasma WakeField Accelerators can generate few-cycle coherent tunable soft x-ray pulses with TW peak power and a duration of tens of attoseconds, an order of magnitude more powerful, shorter, and with better stability than state-of-the-art X-ray Free Electron Lasers (XFELs). Such a light source would significantly enhance the ability to experimentally investigate electron dynamics on ultrafast timescales, having a broad-ranging impact across multiple scientific fields. Rather than starting from noise as in typical XFELs, the x-ray emission in this approach is driven by coherent radiation from a pre-bunched, high peak current electron beam of attosecond duration. This relaxes the restrictive tolerances that have hindered progress toward utilizing plasma accelerators as coherent x-ray drivers thus far, presenting a new paradigm for advanced accelerator light source applications.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Growth of emittance in laser-plasma electron acceleration in guiding structures

We study angular characteristics, such as emittance and fraction of electrons emitted into a prescribed solid angle, for electron bunches that are accelerated in wake fields generated in various guiding structures – capillary waveguides and plasma channels, in which intense laser pulses propagate. The investigation is performed at various injection energies, which simulate input conditions to different cascades of a multistage electron accelerator. It is shown that, in contrast to the limitations issuing from the requirement of trapping and accelerating a substantial part of bunch electrons, the condition of maintaining the low emittance of the bunch, needed for successful transfer of the accelerated bunch to the entry of the next acceleration cascade or other device, imposes much more strict limitations on the accuracy of focusing of laser radiation to the guiding structure. (paper)

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Single Shot Characterization of High Transformer Ratio Wakefields in Nonlinear Plasma Acceleration

We report that plasma wakefields can enable very high accelerating gradients for frontier high energy particle accelerators, in excess of 10 GeV/m. To overcome limits on single stage acceleration, specially shaped drive beams can be used in both linear and nonlinear plasma wakefield accelerators (PWFA), to increase the transformer ratio, implying that the drive beam deceleration is minimized relative to acceleration obtained in the wake. In this Letter, we report the results of a nonlinear PWFA, high transformer ratio experiment using high-charge, longitudinally asymmetric drive beams in a plasma cell. An emittance exchange process is used to generate variable drive current profiles, in conjunction with a long (multiple plasma wavelength) witness beam. The witness beam is energy modulated by the wakefield, yielding a response that contains detailed spectral information in a single-shot measurement. Using these methods, we generate a variety of beam profiles and characterize the wakefields, directly observing transformer ratios up to R=7.8. Lastly, a spectrally based reconstruction technique, validated by 3D particle-in-cell simulations, is introduced to obtain the drive beam current profile from the decelerating wake data.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Electrical Engineering in Los Alamos Neutron Science Center Accelerator

The field of electrical engineering plays a significant role in particle accelerator design and operations. Los Alamos National Laboratories LANSCE facility utilizes the electrical energy concepts of power distribution, plasma generation, radio frequency energy, electrostatic acceleration, signals and diagnostics. The culmination of these fields produces a machine of incredible potential with uses such as isotope production, neutron spallation, neutron imaging and particle analysis. The key isotope produced in LANSCE isotope production facility is Strontium-82 which is utilized for medical uses such as cancer treatment and positron emission tomography also known as PET scans. Neutron spallation is one of the very few methods used to produce neutrons for scientific research the other methods are natural decay of transuranic elements from nuclear reactors. Accelerator produce neutrons by accelerating charged particles into neutron dense elements such as tungsten imparting a neutral particle with kinetic energy, this has the benefit of producing a large number of neutrons as well as minimizing the waste generated. Utilizing the accelerator scientist can gain an understanding of how various particles behave and interact with matter to better understand the natural laws of physics and the universe around us.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Staging For Wakefield Acceleration Experiment Hardware Development: Fast Kicker and High Power RF Delay Section

This project pursues demonstration of the complete staging of high gradient wakefield acceleration at Argonne Wakefield Accelerator (AWA) facility, which is well aligned with the core mission of AWA and the roadmap laid out for the dielectric wakefield accelerator technology toward future linear colliders. During the project, we have successfully demonstrated the feasibility of the staged short pulse TBA (C. Jing, et al, Nucl. Instrum. Meth. A., 898, 72-76, 2018). We have successfully performed the first over 100MW dielectric power extractor. As the last task, one of the key elements for the drive beam distribution system, the fast kicker, has been built and successfully demonstrated this year too. The staging technology demonstrated in this project is crucial for the 500MeV Demonstrator that is planned at AWA in the next five years. The plan is to use two staged meter long dielectric disk accelerators to achieve 500MeV energy gain within ~10 meter long experimental space. While this SBIR project is closed, we plan to continue to investigate the dielectric accelerator technologies under Euclid's general scientific and commercial interests.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Design and Principles of Linear Accelerators and Colliders." in Particle Physics Reference Library, pp. 295-336. Springer, Cham, 2020.

Linear accelerators (linacs) use alternating radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic fields to accelerate charged particles in a straight line. Linacs were invented about 95 years ago and have seen many significant technical innovations since. A wide range of particle beams have been accelerated with linacs including beams of electrons, positrons, protons, antiprotons, and heavy ions. Linac parameter possibilities include pulsed versus continuous wave, low and high beam powers, low and high repetition rates, low transverse emittance beams, short bunches with small energy spreads, and accelerated multiple bunches in a single pulse. The number of linacs around the world has grown tremendously with thousands of linacs in present use, many for medical therapy, in industry, and for research and development in a broad spectrum of scientific fields. Researchers have developed accelerators for scientific tools in their own right, being awarded several Nobel prizes. Moreover, linacs and particle accelerators in general have enabled many discovery level science experiments in related fields, resulting in many Nobel prizes as well.

Seeman, John↗
DOE OSTI2015

Enhanced long-term strength and durability of shotcrete with high-strength C{sub 12}A{sub 7} mineral-based accelerator

This study evaluated the performance of shotcrete using high strength C{sub 12}A{sub 7} mineral-based accelerator that has been developed to improve the durability and long-term strength. Rebound, compressive strength and flexural strength were tested in the field. Test result showed that existing C{sub 12}A{sub 7} mineral-based accelerator exhibits better early strength than the high-strength C{sub 12}A{sub 7} mineral-based accelerator until the early age, but high-strength C{sub 12}A{sub 7} mineral-based accelerator shows about 29% higher at the long-term age of 28 days. Microstructural analysis such as scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and nitrogen adsorption method was evaluated to analyze long-term strength development mechanism of high strength C{sub 12}A{sub 7} mineral-based accelerator. As analysis result, it had more dense structure due to the reaction product by adding material that used to enhanced strength. It had better resistance performance in chloride ion penetration, freezing–thawing and carbonation than shotcrete that used existing C{sub 12}A{sub 7} mineral-based accelerator.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2013

Efficient Heterogeneous Execution on Large Multicore and Accelerator Platforms: Case Study Using a Block Tridiagonal Solver

The algorithmic and implementation principles are explored in gainfully exploiting GPU accelerators in conjunction with multicore processors on high-end systems with large numbers of compute nodes, and evaluated in an implementation of a scalable block tridiagonal solver. The accelerator of each compute node is exploited in combination with multicore processors of that node in performing block-level linear algebra operations in the overall, distributed solver algorithm. Optimizations incorporated include: (1) an efficient memory mapping and synchronization interface to minimize data movement, (2) multi-process sharing of the accelerator within a node to obtain balanced load with multicore processors, and (3) an automatic memory management system to efficiently utilize accelerator memory when sub-matrices spill over the limits of device memory. Results are reported from our novel implementation that uses MAGMA and CUBLAS accelerator software systems simultaneously with ACML for multithreaded execution on processors. Overall, using 940 nVidia Tesla X2090 accelerators and 15,040 cores, the best heterogeneous execution delivers a 10.9-fold reduction in run time relative to an already efficient parallel multicore-only baseline implementation that is highly optimized with intra-node and inter-node concurrency and computation-communication overlap. Detailed quantitative results are presented to explain all critical runtime components contributing to hybrid performance.

Park, Alfred J↗
DOE OSTI2018

Tuning of LANSCE 805-MHz high-energy linear accelerator with reduced beam losses

Suppression of beam losses is essential for successful operation of high-intensity linac. Historically, the values of the field amplitudes and phases of the side-coupled, 805-MHz LANSCE linac modules are maintained using a well-known delta-t tuning procedure. Transverse matching of the beam with accelerator is performed through adjustments of beam ellipses in 4D phase space with accelerator lattice using matching quadrupoles. Control of the beam-energy ramp along the length of a proton linear accelerator is required to improve tune of accelerator and decrease beam losses. Time-of-flight measurements of the H - beam energy are now being used to confirm and improve the overall control of the energy ramp along the linac. The time-of-flight method utilizes absolute measurements of beam energy using direct signals from beam at an oscilloscope, as well as the difference in RF phases measured as the beam passes installed delta-t pickup loops. A newly developed BPPM data acquisition system is used. Beam energy measurement along accelerator together with phase scans, klystrons output power control, and delta-t method, allow tuning of accelerator much more close to original design and reduce losses generated by linac. Details of the upgraded tuning procedure and results of tuning and operation are presented here.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2018

Diffusive shock re-acceleration

Here, we have performed two-dimensional hybrid simulations of non-relativistic collisionless shocks in the presence of pre-existing energetic particles (‘seeds’); such a study applies, for instance, to the re-acceleration of galactic cosmic rays (CRs) in supernova remnant (SNR) shocks and solar wind energetic particles in heliospheric shocks. Energetic particles can be effectively reflected and accelerated regardless of shock inclination via a process that we call diffusive shock re-acceleration. We determine that re-accelerated seeds can drive the streaming instability in the shock upstream and produce effective magnetic field amplification. This can later trigger the injection of thermal protons even at oblique shocks that ordinarily cannot inject thermal particles. We characterize the current in reflected seeds, finding that it tends to a universal value $J\simeq en_{\text{CR}}v_{\text{sh}}$ , where $en_{\text{CR}}$ is the seed charge density and $v_{\text{sh}}$ is the shock velocity. When applying our results to SNRs, we find that the re-acceleration of galactic CRs can excite the Bell instability to nonlinear levels in less than ${\sim}10~\text{yr}$ , thereby providing a minimum level of magnetic field amplification for any SNR shock. Finally, we discuss the relevance of diffusive shock re-acceleration also for other environments, such as heliospheric shocks, galactic superbubbles and clusters of galaxies.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Quasi-monoenergetic laser-plasma acceleration of electrons to 2 GeV

Laser-plasma accelerators of only a centimetre’s length have produced nearly monoenergetic electron bunches with energy as high as 1 GeV. Scaling these compact accelerators to multi-gigaelectronvolt energy would open the prospect of building X-ray free-electron lasers and linear colliders hundreds of times smaller than conventional facilities, but the 1 GeV barrier has so far proven insurmountable. Here, by applying new petawatt laser technology, we produce electron bunches with a spectrum prominently peaked at 2 GeV with only a few per cent energy spread and unprecedented sub-milliradian divergence. Petawatt pulses inject ambient plasma electrons into the laser-driven accelerator at much lower density than was previously possible, thereby overcoming the principal physical barriers to multi-gigaelectronvolt acceleration: dephasing between laser-driven wake and accelerating electrons and laser pulse erosion. Simulations indicate that with improvements in the laser-pulse focus quality, acceleration to nearly 10 GeV should be possible with the available pulse energy.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗