Recently, the Low-Energy Demonstration Accelerator (LEDA) portion of the Accelerator Production of Tritium (APT) project reached its 100-mA, 8-hr CW beam operation milestone. LEDA consists of a 75-keV proton injector, 6.7-MeV, 350-MHz CW radio-frequency quadruple (RFQ) with associated high-power and low-level rf systems, a short high-energy beam transport (HEBT) and high-power (670-kW CW) beam dump. During the commissioning phase it was discovered that the RFQ field level needs to be approximately 5-10% higher than design in order to accelerate the full 100-mA beam with low losses. Upon further investigation, we have observed that the beam transmission for the 100-mA low-duty-factor beam is unexpectedly low for RFQ field levels between 90 and 105% of design. This paper will describe some aspects of LEDA operations critical to achieving the above milestone. Measurement and simulation results focused on understanding this reduced beam transmission for the RFQ operating at design conditions are also presented.
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