Low-energy demonstration accelerator

Contact: Jim Danneskiold, (505) 667-1640 (99-027)

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LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Feb. 17, 1999 -- The Low-Energy Demonstration Accelerator is a full-scale prototype of the front end of the Accelerator Production of Tritium production system. Los Alamos National Laboratory built LEDA to demonstrate integrated operation and confirm the performance of the most challenging portion of an APT machine, at full power and under plant operating conditions. Today's dedication of LEDA signifies readiness of the accelerator for operational testing and performance benchmarking.

LEDA consists of a proton injector and the first two accelerator structures in the APT linac accelerating chain. A 26-foot-long radiofrequency quadrupole, or RFQ, converts the high-intensity (100 milliAmpere) continuous stream of protons from the injector into a bunched beam and accelerates it to an energy of 6.7 million electron volts (MeV). Later this year, Los Alamos will add to the RFQ a coupled cavity drift tube linac section that will continue accelerating the beam to 10 MeV. At this energy, we will make precise measurements of the high-intensity beam properties.

The LEDA proton injector has been in operation for over a year, and has more than satisfied its design performance requirements. The RFQ installation was completed late last year, and it is being conditioned with high-voltage radio-frequency power to reach the level needed for accelerating beam. This is the highest-energy and highest-power proton RFQ ever built. First beam tests are expected within days. When the full, 100 milliAmpere beam is accelerated through the RFQ, it will have an output power of 670 kilowatts. This is close to the output beam power in the much-higher-energy linear accelerator at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center, the world's highest-power proton linac. Nevertheless, beam through the RFQ will set a world record for proton power at 6.7 MeV.

The coupled-cavity section that Los Alamos is building to follow the RFQ will be a prototype of the low-energy part of the half-mile-long APT plant accelerator. Once LEDA is operational at 10 MeV, the one-megawatt proton beam power will be the highest in the world, surpassing that of LANSCE. The high-energy part of the accelerator (from 211 MeV to 1030 MeV) would have used superconducting cavity technology. Los Alamos is demonstrating these superconducting cavities as part of the APT technology program, but they will not be installed.

LEDA will provide scientists and engineers extensive experience in the use of an operational high-power accelerator suitable for many industrial applications, including tritium production. Precise beam measurements using LEDA will help us understand how this new class of accelerator performs and demonstrate that the accelerator has the high reliability needed for future large-scale applications of this technology such as Accelerator Transmutation of Waste or advanced fission energy.

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