Injector conditioning
The Injector operation continued this week at 50% duty cycle (d.c.) and 100mA of total extracted current from deuterium plasma. The beam was very stable and the ramp-up time to the target dc could be improved. The target performance for the facility inspection (50%dc @100mA) was confirmed. On Friday afternoon a self-imposed inspection was performed with measurements of radiation level while the injector operates at 50%dc @100mA. The facility inspection is scheduled next week, on 16th December.
Radio Frequency (RF) System
After the start-up of the entire RF system last week, a few additional actions to improve the stability of the system were identified. Next week the final tetrode of chain 2A will be extracted for high voltage conditioning. In parallel the key upgrade of the PYS-LLRF interface to improve the time response of the fast interlock is ongoing. The performance checks and further improvement were completed on the RF module 4 and the RF team target to propagate the modification to all the modules by mid of January. RF injection in the RFQ should resume in the second half of January.
HEBT (High Energy Beam Transport) commissioning
This week was again very dense of remote sessions with great support from CIEMAT. Efforts were dedicated to commission the different Beam Instrumentation equipment installed in the HEBT line (SEM grid, Slits, Faraday Cup) and to solve setting issues with two power supplies of two quadrupoles magnets. Presently all Power Supplies (apart the Dipole Power supply for which urgent countermeasures are being taken) of HEBT magnets are working properly and correctly set-up.
Beam Dump
The installation of the planned upgrade in the deaeration loop (oxygen control loop) of the Beam Dump started this week and it is planned to last until 18 December.
Global Alignment survey
The planned global alignment survey of the LIPAc has been anticipated to start in December after the facility inspection. Preparation of instrumentation, training and inspection in the vault were carried out this week.
Disclaimer: the information reported is not meant to be technically complete and doesn’t cover all the activities currently carried out on LIPAc.