Publications
Publication Information
| Title | The Prehistory of Jefferson Lab's SRF Accelerating Cavities, 1962 to 1985 |
| Authors | Catherine Westfall |
| JLAB number | JLAB-PHY-97-35 |
| LANL number | (None) |
| Other number | (None) |
| Document Type(s) | (Journal Article) |
| Associated with EIC: | No |
| Supported by Jefferson Lab LDRD Funding: | No |
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Journal Compiled for Preprint to be distributed | |
| Publication Abstract: | In April 1983, an advisory panel chaired by D. Allan Bromley of Yale University met to preside over a "shoot-out" competition among five organizations' proposals for high-duty-cycle electronuclear accelerators. The winning design was a multi-GeV linear accelerator (linac) with a pulse stretcher ring (PSR) proposed by the recently formed Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA). One of the selling points of the SURA design was that it was based on well-known, reliable technology. In mid-1985 in Newport News, Virginia, detailed planning began for building SURA's Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF, renamed in 1996 the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility). By early 1986, however, the decision had been made to abandon the linac-PSR design in favor of the one that was ultimately built: a recirculating machine with two superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) linacs. SRF technology had been dismissed as unworkable by all five of the Bromley panel competitors, despite earlier high hopes for its promise. Why did hopes for an SRF electronuclear accelerator rise in the 1960s, fall in the 1970s, then revive dramatically in 1985? To answer these questions, this paper focuses first on the struggles, the triumphs, and the failures experienced by Stanford University's High Energy Physics Laboratory, HEPL, where the intriguing but quirky technology was pioneered from the early 1960s through the early 1970s. After discussing how HEPL's problems diverted plans for an SRF electronuclear accelerator, the paper describes the development of workable cavities at Cornell from 1969 to 1985 against the backdrop of the painstakingly slow but ultimately successful international SRF research and development effort. |
| Experiment Numbers: | other |
| Group: | Directorate |
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