Physics design of a CW high-power proton Linac for accelerator-driven system

Accelerator-driven systems (ADS) have evoked lot of interest the world over because of their capability to incinerate the MA (minor actinides) and LLFP (long-lived fission products) radiotoxic waste and their ability to utilize thorium as an alternative nuclear fuel. One of the main subsystems of ADS is a high energy (∼1 GeV) and high current (∼30 mA) CW proton Linac. The accelerator for ADS should have high efficiency and reliability and very low beam losses to allow hands-on maintenance. With these criteria, the beam dynamics simulations for a 1 GeV, 30 mA proton Linac has been done. The Linac consists of normal-conducting radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ), drift tube linac (DTL) and coupled cavity drift tube Linac (CCDTL) structures that accelerate the beam to about 100 MeV followed by superconducting (SC) elliptical cavities, which accelerate the beam from 100 MeV to 1 GeV. The details of the design are presented in this paper.