A Multigrid-Based Beam Dynamics Code for High Current Proton Linacs

A beam dynamics code has been developed for the design assessment of a superconducting high current proton linac for the ENEA/INFN TRASCO Project (intended for nuclear waste transmutation in a subcritical reactor). The code deals with the dynamics of a moderate energy (above tens of MeV) and high current proton beam in a beamline composed of elliptical superconducting cavities and quadrupoles. A 3D Poisson solver based on multigrid techniques has been chosen for the space charge calculations. The simulation results for the reference linac design, with a particular care to emittance growth and halo generation, are here reported. 1 GENERAL FEATURES OF THE CODE The code[1] has been specifically developed for the simulation of high current proton beams in a superconducting linac that uses "elliptical " cavities, as is the case for TRASCO[2]. The beam is advanced along the linac in phase steps (where the phase is defined as W UI ω=φ, an