Conceptual Design of the Linac4 Main Dump

Linac4 is the new CERN linear accelerator intended to replace the ageing Linac2 as the injector to the Proton Synchrotron Booster (PSB) for increasing the luminosity of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). By delivering a 160MeV H- beam, Linac4 will provide the necessary conditions to double the brightness and intensity of the beam extracted from the PSB. This paper describes the conceptual design of the Linac4 Main Dump, where two different concepts relying respectively on water and air cooling were compared and evaluated. Based on the application of analytical models for the energy deposited by the beam, heat conduction and cooling concepts, a parametric study was performed. This approach allowed the identification of the “optimal” configuration for these two conceptual geometries and their relative comparison. Besides giving the theoretical guidelines for the design of the new dump, this work also contributes to the development of analytical tools to allow a better understanding of the influence of the several design parameters in this type of low-energy beam intercepting devices.