Conditioning and Future Plans for a Multi-purpose 805 MHz Pillbox Cavity for Muon Acceleration

An 805 MHz RF pillbox cavity has been designed and constructed to investigate potential muon beam acceleration and cooling techniques for a Muon Collider or Neutrino Factory. The cavity can operate in vacuum or under pressure to 100 atmospheres, at room temperature or in a liquid nitrogen bath at 77 K. The cavity has been designed for easy assembly and disassembly with bolted construction using aluminum seals. To perform vacuum and high pressure breakdown studies of materials and geometries most suitable for the collider or factory, the surfaces of the end walls of the cavity can be replaced with different materials such as copper, aluminum, beryllium, or molybdenum, and with different geometries such as shaped windows or grid structures. The cavity has been designed to fit inside the 5-Tesla solenoid in the MuCool Test Area at Fermilab. In this paper we present the vacuum conditioning results and discuss plans for testing in a 5-Tesla magnetic field. Additionally, we discuss the testing plan for beryllium (a material research has shown to be ideal for the collider or factory) end walls.
Comment: 3 pp. 3rd International Particle Accelerator Conference (IPAC 2012) 20-25 May 2012, New Orleans, Louisiana