TOUTATIS: A radio frequency quadrupole code

Abstract

A cw high power linear accelerator can only work with very low particle losses and structure activation. At low energy, the radio frequency quadrupole (RFQ) is an accelerator element that is very sensitive to losses. To design this structure, a good understanding of the beam dynamics is required. Generally, the reference code PARMTEQM is enough to design the accelerator. TOUTATIS has been written with the goals of cross-checking results and obtaining more reliable dynamics. This paper relates the different numerical methods used in the code. It is time based, using multigrids methods and adaptive mesh for a fine description of the forces without being time consuming. The field is calculated through a Poisson solver and the vanes are fully described, allowing it to properly simulate the coupling gaps and the RFQs extremities. Theoretical and experimental tests are also described and show a good agreement between simulations and reference cases. © 2000 The American Physical Society.