Field stability of an Alvarez-type drift tube linear accelerator with small drift tubes

This study presents theoretical, simulation and experimental investigations of the field stability of a 7 MeV Alvarez-type drift tube linear accelerator (DTL) with small drift tubes (DTs). Although technical advances in permanent magnet quadrupoles make smaller DTs possible, resulting in higher shunt impedance, it is widely recognized that the DT-to-wall spacing must lie between ∼0.90 and ∼1.03 times a quarter wavelength (λ/4) to achieve field stability through post couplers (PCs). To enhance the shunt impedance of a DTL cavity, we decrease the outer diameter of the DTs and increase the inner diameter of the cavity, resulting in a DT-to-wall spacing of 1.16 times λ/4. A low-power experiment confirms that when the global tilt sensitivity slope is zero, the PC-to-DT distance is larger and there exists a stronger coupling between the PCs, resulting in a disturbed distribution of PC modes, where the frequencies of lower-order modes are overwhelmed by higher-order modes. The observed result is consistent with the analysis result given by the equivalent circuit theory and three-dimensional simulation. After field tuning by the trial-and-error method, the relative error of the axial electric field is within ±1.9% and the tilt sensitivity is within ±70%/MHz.