LINAC5 - A Quasi-Alvarez Linac for BioLEIR

LINAC5 is a new linac proposed for the acceleration of light ions with Q/A = 1/3 to 1/4 for medical applications within the BioLEIR (Low Energy Ion Ring) design study at CERN. We propose a novel quasi-Alvarez drift-tube linac (DTL) accelerating structure design for LINAC5, which can reduce the length of a more conventional DTL structure, yet allows better beam focussing control and flexibility than the inter-digital H (IH) structures typically used for modern ion acceleration. We present the main sections of the linac with total length ∼12 m, including a 202 MHz radio frequency quadrupole (RFQ) a matching medium energy beam transport (MEBT) and a 405 MHz quasi-Alvarez accelerating section with an output energy of 4.2 MeV/u. Permanent magnet quadrupoles are proposed for use in the quasi-Alvarez structure to improve the compactness of the design and increase the efficiency. Lattice design considerations, multi-particle beam dynamics simulations and RFQ and radio frequency (RF) cavity designs are presented.