Experience with Long-pulse Operation of the PIP2IT Warm Front End

TL;DR

This paper reports on the long-pulse operation experience of the PIP2IT warm front end, highlighting challenges faced and solutions implemented during commissioning to emulate PIP-II's duty cycle and power levels.

Contribution

It provides practical insights into operating a high-power CW RFQ with long-pulse beams, including technical difficulties and mitigation strategies.

Findings

Achieved 5 kW beam power in long-pulse operation

Identified key challenges in high-power CW RFQ operation

Implemented solutions to improve stability and performance

Abstract

The warm front end of the PIP2IT accelerator, assem-bled and commissioned at Fermilab, consists of a 15 mA DC, 30 keV H- ion source, a 2 m long Low Energy Beam Transport (LEBT) line, and a 2.1 MeV, 162.5 MHz CW RFQ, followed by a 10 m long Medium Energy Beam Transport (MEBT) line. A part of the commissioning efforts involves operation with the average beam power emulating the operation of the proposed PIP-II accelera-tor, which will have a duty factor of 1.1% or above. The maximum achieved power is 5 kW (2.1 MeV x 5 mA x 25 ms x 20 Hz). This paper describes the difficulties encoun-tered and some of the solutions that were implemented.