Speaker
Description
The ASTERIX project, funded by the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) under the National Scientific Committee CSN5 program, focuses on the development of advanced X-band (11–12 GHz) accelerating structures based on hard copper and innovative manufacturing techniques. The project aims at the first demonstration of a practical, meter-long travelling-wave RF linac structure capable of operating at accelerating gradients exceeding 100 MV/m. The proposed design adopts an open-type geometry composed of four copper quadrants that are machined from solid blocks and joined using Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG) welding, enabling a braze-free, cost-effective, and robust fabrication process.
The RF design includes multi-cell travelling-wave cavities optimized for both single-bunch and multi-bunch operation. The four-quadrant configuration is intended to suppress dipole and quadrupole electromagnetic field components that can degrade beam dynamics. Integrated RF power couplers, two- and four-port geometries, are implemented to achieve compactness and mitigate unwanted field components. In addition, a secondary vacuum chamber is incorporated to improve pumping speed and to allow the installation of high-order-mode (HOM) absorbers when operating in multi-bunch regimes.
The research program includes RF design and wakefield/HOM characterization and optimization, fabrication of small-scale prototypes and a full-scale structure for single-bunch operation, and experimental validation through low-power RF measurements at the LATINO Laboratory and high-power RF testing at the TEX facility. Here, we present the project status and results from the first year, which include the production of the 1-m-long prototype to address the following main mechanical tasks: welding procedure, quadrant alignment and straightness, and vacuum tightness.
This effort is carried out within an international collaboration involving SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, CERN, INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, KEK, and Tsinghua University, aimed at advancing high-gradient accelerator technologies crucial for the next generation of linear particle accelerators for research (such as linear colliders and light sources like EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB), as well as for industrial and medical applications.
| Working group | WG4 |
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