New method to improve the accuracy of quench position measurement on a superconducting cavity by a second sound method

Quench is a common phenomenon in a superconducting cavity and often limits the accelerating gradient of the cavity. Accurate location of the quench site, typically located at a material or geometrical defect, is the key to improve the cavity accelerating gradient. Here, the second sound propagation in liquid helium II is used to detect the quench location on the cavity. The technique is relatively convenient and complements the traditional temperature mapping which measures the “prequench” temperature rise on the cavity using an array of sensors. The speed of the second sound in liquid helium II is roughly 1.7cm/ms at 2 K which is sufficiently fast to provide a millimeter-size position resolution. However, the dynamics of the quench at the cavity surface are also found to significantly affect the achievable resolution with real cavities. Here we use a dynamic quench model, based on ANSYS, to calculate the quench area and the temperature distribution on the cavity. The detection error caused by the thermal conduction in the niobium was calculated.