Current and Planned High Proton Flux Operations at the FNAL Booster

TL;DR

This paper discusses Fermilab's Booster synchrotron's recent high proton flux operations, hardware upgrades, and plans to double beam throughput while maintaining safety and operational standards.

Contribution

It presents new operational plans and hardware improvements aimed at increasing proton flux beyond current levels at Fermilab's Booster.

Findings

Achieved proton flux of 1.0-1.1E17 protons/hour

Maintained 525 W beam loss limit

Plans to double beam throughput in future operations

Abstract

The Fermilab Proton Source machines, constituted by Pre-Injector, conventional Linac and Booster synchrotron, at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) had have a long history of successful beam operations. Built in late '60s, the Fermilab Proton Source began operations early in the '70s and since then it has successful provided protons to support the laboratory physics experiments. During the past decade, Booster performance reached unprecedented proton flux delivery of the order of 1.0-1.1E17 protons per hour, corresponding to 40 kW of beam power while maintained an allowed upper limit of 525 W of beam loss in the tunnel. In order to achieve this historical performance, major hardware upgrades were made in the machine combined with improvements in beam orbit control and operational awareness. Once again, the Proton Source has been charged to double their beam throughput, while maintaining the present residual activation levels, to meet the laboratory Intensity Frontier program goals until new machines are built and operational to replace them. In this paper we will discuss the plans involved in reaching even higher beam throughput in Booster.