Automatic phase setting via time-of-flight alignment and phase calibration on a superconducting hadron linac

Abstract: Automatic phase setting is essential for modern linacs which have increasingly stringent time demands for beam tune-up and fault compensation. A key challenge in automatic phase setting is obtaining an accurate knowledge of the position and phase offsets of all cavities. This study proposes a beam-based method that employs time-of-flight (TOF) experiments to for simultaneous alignment and phase calibration of a superconducting hadron linac. The proposed method is[A1]  verified using a CAFe II accelerator at the Institute of Modern Physics, where offset measurements enable rapid tune-up via automatic phase setting, and the output beam energies closely match the predicted values. The proposed method is able to address longitudinal position shifts within cryomodules due to cool-down, readily applicable to superconducting hadron linacs, and expected to be employed in the upcoming commissioning of CiADS and HIAF.