Present Status of the Laser Charge Exchange Test Using the 3-MeV Linac in J-PARC

The Accelerator-driven System (ADS) is one of the candidates for transmuting long-lived nuclides, such as minor actinide (MA), produced by nuclear reactors. For efficient transmutation of the MA, a precise prediction of neutronics of ADS is required. In order to obtain the neutronics data for the ADS, the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC) has a plan to build the Transmutation Physics Experimental Facility (TEF-P), in which a 400-MeV negative proton (H) beam will be delivered from the J-PARC linac. Since the TEF-P requires a stable proton beam with a power of less than 10 W, a stable and meticulous beam extraction method is required to extract a small amount of the proton beam from the high power beam using 250 kW. To fulfil this requirement, the Laser Charge Exchange (LCE) method has been developed. The LCE strips the electron of the H beam and neutral protons will separate at the bending magnet in the proton beam transport. To demonstrate the charge exchange of the H, a preliminary LCE experiment was conducted using a linac with energy of 3 MeV in JPARC. As a result of the experiment, a charge-exchanged H beam with a power of about 5 W equivalent was obtained under the J-PARC linac beam condition, and this value almost satisfied the power requirement of the proton beam for the TEF-P.