OPERATIONAL EXPERIENCE WITH THE IUAC LINAC

The superconducting heavy ion LINAC at the Inter University Accelerator Centre (IUAC) is designed to have three accelerating modules, each housing eight Niobium Quarter Wave Resonators (QWR), a superbuncher housing a single QWR and a rebuncher housing two QWR’s. Presently one accelerating module, the superbuncher and the rebuncher are operational. The other two modules are in an advanced stage of fabrication. In a recent operation several ion beams (from 12C to 107Ag) from the 15 UD Pelletron were further accelerated through the first LINAC module and delivered for scheduled experiments. The energy gain from the LINAC, which was primarily dictated by the requirements of the experiment, was in the range of 2.5– 3.5 MeV per charge state. The time widths achieved at the LINAC entrance and at the target locations were of the order of 200 and 350ps respectively. Details of the operational experience, results, problems encountered and the improvements that are being planned, have been presented in the paper