Investigation of Space Charge Compensation at Fets

In order to contribute to the development of high power proton accelerators in the MW range, to prepare the way for an ISIS upgrade and to contribute to the UK design effort on neutrino factories, a front end test stand (FETS) is being constructed at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in the UK [1]. The aim of the FETS is to demonstrate the production of a 60 mA, 2 ms, 50 pps chopped beam at 3 MeV with sufficient beam quality. The ion source and LEBT are operational [2] with the RFQ being assembled and tested. As a more detailed knowledge is of interest also for other projects like ESS, LINAC4 or PIXIE the FETS LEBT was updated to perform a detailed experimental analysis of space charge compensation utilizing a pulsed decompensation electrode together with a residual gas ion energy spectrometer and a fast emittance measurement device. In the FETS LEBT a high degree of space charge compensation (~90%) and a rise time of space charge compensation around ~ 50 sec could be concluded from measurements [2]. In this paper the results of further experimental work will be presented together with discussion of the findings.