The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research has successfully launched a new linear deuteron and light ion accelerator worked out in MEPhI for a building collider NICA. According to the statement of the Department №14 “Electrophysical facilities”, the injector was assembled as a part of an accelerator complex and from May, 16th till May, 20th, 2016 successfully injected beam was accelerated in a linear proton accelerator up to the design energy of 5 MeV/nucleon.
The project on creation of a new linear accelerator aimed at the injection of protons and deuterons, including polarized ones, and light ions into an accelerator complex “Nuclotron”, and a building collider NICA, started in 2011. It is aimed at the replacement of a high-voltage electrostatic pre-injector, launched 40 years ago, for a modern accelerator with spatially uniform quadrupole focusing. The project is being realized by a team of specialists from JINR, MEPhI and Kurchatov Institute.
After two years of working under project construction documents have been prepared and accelerator cavity has been made in the Russian Federal Nuclear Center – VNIITF (Snezhinsk). The system of high-frequency supply has also been developed and made. The physical start-up of the new accelerator was conducted in December, 2015.
Above: team of developers – E.M. Syresin (“Nuclotron”), A.V. Butenko (JINR), T.V. Kulevoy (Kurchatov Institute), S.M. Polozov (MEPhI)
The results of the work have been reported at the large international conference, 7th International Particle Accelerators Conference, IPAC’2016, held in the middle of May, 2016 in Busan, South Korea.
At the moment the injection complex is getting ready for work with a new source of polarized protons and deuterons. It is planned to work out a new superconductive linear accelerator for energy of 25-30 MeV to replace morally and physically obsolescent LU-20.
Oscilogram of a beam of accelerated deuteron ions in a new injector
