Design study of the SSC-LINAC re-buncher

A re-buncher with spiral arms for a heavy ion linear accelerator named as SSC-LINAC at HIRFL (the heavy ion research facility of Lanzhou) has been constructed. The re-buncher, which is used for beam longitudinal modulation and matching between the RFQ and DTL, is designed to be operated in continuous wave (CW) mode at the Medium-Energy Beam-Transport (MEBT) line to maintain the beam intensity and quality. Because of the longitudinal space limitation, the re-buncher has to be very compact and will be built with four gaps. We determined the key parameters of the re-buncher cavity from the simulations using Microwave Studio software, such as the resonant frequency, the quality factor Q and the shunt impedance. The detailed design of a 53.667 MHz spiral cavity and measurement results of its prototype will be presented.