COMMISSIONING OF THE 7 MEV/U, 217 MHZ INJECTOR LINAC FOR THE HEAVY ION CANCER THERAPY FACILITY AT THE UNIVERSITY CLINICS IN HEIDELBERG

A clinical synchrotron facility for cancer therapy using energetic proton and ion beams (C, He and O) is presently installed and under commissioning at the Radiologische Universitatsklinik in Heidelberg, Germany. The current status of the linac commissioning is reported. The installation and commissioning of the linac is performed gradually in three steps for the ion sources and the LEBT, for the RFQ, and for the IH-type drift tube linac. In April 2006 first ion beams have been produced. Various beam measurements with different ion species have been performed using a special test bench with versatile beam diagnostics elements. The status of the 20 MV IH-DTL cavity and the linac RF system is also briefly reported.