Heat Transport and Refrigeration for Superconducting Linear Accelerators

Abstract

From the point of view of the nuclear physicist who uses a linear accelerator, the great advantages of a superconducting machine are its potentials for high duty cycle. high energy resolution operation. Whereas the room-temperature accelerator operates in a duty cycle of microseconds-on-miiliseconds-off, the superconducting accelerator can operate continuously at gradients within its refrigeration capacity and, at higher energy gradients, in a cycle with minutes or seconds of on-time, Thus, this on-time is much greater than the time required to establish the accelerating fields in the structure, and the energy resolution is not limited by transients as it is in a conventional accelerator. In addition, the lower dissipation, better environmental control and greater energy storage in the superconducting structure make the accelerating gradient much more easily regulated in a superconducting machine than in a normal one.

Work supported in part by the U.S. Office of Naval Research under Contract Nonr 225(67).