RADIATION SHIELDING FOR THE 100 keV ELECTRON GUN OF THE HAMPTON

Minnae Chabwera: NASA Undergraduate Research Scholar Advisor: Dr. Paul Guèye Institution: Hampton University Hampton, VA 23668 Introduction The research conducted under the guidance of Dr. Paul Guèye involved the construction of a Low Energy Electron Accelerator (LELIA) spearheaded by the Physics Department at Hampton University. The aim of this research has been to reactivate a thermionic gun previously used by Jefferson Lab in Newport News, VA during its early years of operation. The system delivers a 100 keV electron beam and will be expanded to 500 keV over the course of two years. The goal will be to eventually expand the electron beam up to 5 MeV and beyond. The accelerator will be used for low energy beam physics studies, open new opportunities for research, and provide training for students and faculty in new and exciting multidisciplinary areas. Some of the work required includes the development of a full realistic simulation of the electron beam gun using the Geant4 Monte Carlo simulation toolkit 3 4 , along with the associated preliminary radiation budget for the system. There is currently a study of the optical transport design for the gun and the accelerating sections being conducted through the use of accelerator physics transport codes. The latter permits researchers to assess the beam parameters. The simulated data will be benchmarked against experimental data previously obtained at Jefferson Lab. Furthermore, the development and construction of diagnostic 1 (2012, April 25). Accelerator physics. Retrieved from Hampton University School of Science website: http://science.hamptonu.edu/physics/research/ap.cfm 2 Retrieved from Jefferson Lab: Exploring the Nature of Matter website: https://www.jlab.org/ 3 S. Agostinelli et al., Geant4 – A Simulation Toolkit, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, A 506 (2003) 250-303 4 K. Amako et al., Geant4 Development and Applications, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science 53 No. 1 (2006) 270-278. tools necessary to identify the definite profiles and currents of the beam exiting the gun allow access to dedicated data to be compared to the Geant4 simulation. The present work focuses on the preliminary implementation of the development of the full realistic simulation of the thermionic gun using the Geant4 Monte Carlo simulation toolkit, version 4.9.6.