High field conditioning of cryogenic RF cavities

Space-based and other related accelerators have conditioning and operation requirements that are not found in most machines. The use of cryogenic copper, relatively poor vacuum, and limited power storage and operating time put unusual demands on the high-field conditioning process and present some concerns. Two CW cryogenic engineering model “sparker” cavities have been fabricated and tested at Grumman to address some of these concerns. Results of these tests have been very positive. The cavities have been tested to fairly high field levels. Tests included initial and repeated conditioning as well as sustained RF operations. The two cavities were an engineering model DTL and an engineering model RFQ. Both cavities operated at 425 MHz. The DTL was conditioned to 46 MV/m at 100% duty factor (CW) at cryogenic temperature. This corresponds to a gap voltage of 433 kV and a real estate accelerating gradient (energy gain/total cavity length) of 6.97 MV/m. We believe this to be record performance for cryo CW operation. During cryo pulsed operation, the same cavity reached 48 MV/m with 200 μsec pulses at 0.5% DF. The RFQ was conditioned to 30 MV/m CW at cryo, 85 kV gap voltage. During a brief period of cryo pulsed operation, the RFQ operated at 46 MV/m, or 125 kV gap voltage. Reconditioning experiments were performed on both cavities and no problems were encountered. It should be noted that the vacuum levels were not very-stringent during these tests and no special cleanliness or handling procedures were followed. The results of these tests indicate that cavities can run CW without difficulty at cryogenic temperatures at normal conservative field levels. Higher field operation may well be possible, and if better vacuums are used and more attention is paid to cleanliness, much higher fields may be attainable