Status and Plans for a Superconducting RF Accelerator Test Facility at Fermilab

TL;DR

Fermilab is developing the ASTA superconducting RF accelerator test facility to support future SRF accelerator research, testing components, RF systems, and control systems with energies up to 1.5 GeV.

Contribution

This paper details the construction, capabilities, and future plans of the ASTA facility at Fermilab, including upgrades and testing infrastructure for SRF accelerators.

Findings

Facility can generate 750 MeV electron beams

Upgrade capability to 1.5 GeV has been completed

Facility will test RF power, instrumentation, and control systems

Abstract

The Advanced Superconducting Test Acccelerator (ASTA) is being constructed at Fermilab. The existing New Muon Lab (NML) building is being converted for this facility. The accelerator will consist of an electron gun, injector, beam acceleration section consisting of 3 TTF-type or ILC-type cryomodules, multiple downstream beamlines for testing diagnostics and conducting various beam tests, and a high power beam dump. When completed, it is envisioned that this facility will initially be capable of generating a 750-MeV electron beam with ILC beam intensity. An expansion of this facility was recently completed that will provide the capability to upgrade the accelerator to a total beam energy of 1.5-GeV. Two new buildings were also constructed adjacent to the ASTA facility to house a new cryogenic plant and multiple superconducting RF (SRF) cryomodule test stands. In addition to testing accelerator components, this facility will be used to test RF power systems, instrumentation, and control systems for future SRF accelerators such as the ILC and Project-X. This paper describes the current status and overall plans for this facility.