The radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ) linac is often used as the first radio-frequency (rf) structure for both bunching and preaccelerating proton or heavy ion beams directly behind an ion source or a low-energy beam transport section. Typically, RFQ linacs operate at frequencies below 450 MHz and beam velocity ranges from $\beta =0.01–0.08$. Taking the MYRRHA project as an example, a 704.4 MHz continuous-wave (cw) RFQ linac has been recently proposed to realize an efficient fourfold frequency jump at $\beta \approx 0.2$. Due to its high frequency, small dimensions, and cw operation mode, careful design studies for the RFQ cavity structure including the water-cooling channels have been further performed, integrating the idea of using additive manufacturing technology for future construction. Systematic rf and thermal simulations and analysis demonstrated the reliability of the 704.4 MHz RFQ linac at cw operation and the frequency tuning ability via water-speed adjustments. This investigation shows that it could be a highly promising solution to perform an efficient frequency jump with a high-frequency RFQ accelerator at $\beta \approx 0.2$ for large-scale hadron linacs, which could potentially shorten the low- and medium-$\beta$ parts of the whole facility.

• Received 22 October 2023
• Accepted 29 January 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevAccelBeams.27.020101

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Published by the American Physical Society