FRIB receives three Department of Energy Accelerator Stewardship Awards

18 November 2019

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC) has awarded three FRIB projects Accelerator Stewardship Awards.

Thirteen awards were provided on a competitive basis to projects that seek to improve accelerator technologies across a wide range of applications, including accelerator-based scientific research in such fields as particle physics and materials science, and uses of accelerators for medicine, industry, and defense.

MSU and FRIB researchers are collaborating with other universities and national laboratories on the awards listed below. Two of the awards listed are directly related to the research taking place in MSU’s Accelerator Science and Engineering Traineeship (ASET) program at FRIB. ASET leverages FRIB to train students in areas where there are workforce shortages nationally.

  • Light and Electron Emission as Radio-Frequency Breakdown Probes
    • Collaboration: MSU (lead institution), SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)
    • MSU Assistant Professor Sergey Baryshev is the project’s principal investigator (PI). The co-PIs are Adjunct Professor of Accelerator Science Ali Nassiri (ANL) and Visiting Professor Sami Tantawi (SLAC). Both are visiting professors at FRIB. Baryshev is an ASET professor, and Nassiri is the co-PI of ASET. Mitchell Schneider, an ASET student, is participating in this project.
    • This research will help FRIB engineers understand mechanism of vacuum breakdowns in normal conducting resonators. High-brightness electron guns and accelerators will be beneficial for future research with rare isotopes at FRIB.
  • Impacts of Microstructure on Niobium Superconducting Radio-Frequency Cavity Performance
    • Collaboration: Florida State University (lead institution), MSU
    • MSU Professor Tom Bieler, FRIB Cryomodule Assembly Group Leader Chris Compton, and MSU Associate Professor Philip Eisenlohr are the PIs.
    • The research focuses on the niobium material used in the fabrication of superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities. This research can develop methods to increase the performance of SRF cavities and reduce costs by understanding the impact to the materials’ proprieties in different phases of its fabrication and operation. Potential gains could be applied to future FRIB designs.
  • Development of High Performance Medium Velocity Superconducting Elliptical Cavities for Hadron Linacs
    • Collaboration: MSU (lead institution), Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), Argonne National Laboratory
    • FRIB Accelerator Physics Department Manager Peter Ostroumov is the PI. Christian Gonzalez-Ortiz and Kellen McGee, both ASET students, are participating in this project.
    • The main goal of this research is to:
      • increase accelerating gradients to minimize required real estate,
      • reduce heat load into the cryogenic plant, and
      • reduce required radio-frequency power.
    • The results of this research and development will directly reduce the size and cost of superconducting accelerators, such as the FRIB energy upgrade or Fermilab’s Proton Improvement Plan-II accelerator. Such results will benefit both science discovery and medicine.

See the full list of the 2019 winners here.

 

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