Status of the H- injector development program at LANSCE

The H^- injector at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is being upgraded to provide a 12% duty-factor, 40-mA, 80-kev H ^- beams, which will enable 200-μA operation of the Los Alamos Neutron Scattering Center (LANSCE) proton storage ring (PSR). An improved version of the LANSCE operational surface-conversion ion source and a new accelerating column have been developed in collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) for this application. We report here the results of the initial tests at LANL on a proof-of-principle (POP) ion source built at LBNL and on modeling studies. The POP ion source has been operated at the 40-mA design beam current, and the beam emittance of the 80-keV extracted beam has been measured both at the exit of the accelerating column and in the 80-keV low-energy beam transport (LEBT) line. Significant, current-dependent, emittance growth was observed in the LEBT. Experimental investigations of this growth are described