During the summer, ESS colleagues successfully completed conditioning of the Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) – the component of the ESS linear accelerator in which RF power is used to focus, bunch and accelerate a stream of charged particles as they move down the accelerator towards the ESS target.
Conditioning of the RFQ is an important step towards the commissioning of the Normal Conducting Linac (NCL) and involves the process of gradually increasing the RF power in the cavity (the power that will be used to accelerate protons in the ESS linac).
The RFQ is a French in-kind contribution to ESS via in-kind partner CEA (French Alternative Energies & Atomic Energies Commission) and French colleagues were on site working around the clock alongside members of ESS Operations, the Linear Accelerator (Linac) Group, Integrated Control System teams and others.
The RFQ is now ready for beam testing which will begin in the autumn after the first Drift Tube Linac (DTL) tank is fully installed in the accelerator tunnel. The first DTL tank, an in-kind contribution to ESS from Italy via the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics - INFN, Italy.