Commissioning of the new GSI high current linac and HIF related RF linac aspects

The new 1.4 MeV/u front end of the Unilac accelerates ions with A/q ratios up to 65 and with beam intensities in mA up to 0.25A/q. The maximum beam power is 1300kW, the normalized 90% emittance areas are around 0.55 pi mm mrad. The layout of the 91 MV linac as well as the results from Ar1 + beam measurements along the whole system are quite important for the design of a HIF-relevant RF driver linac. A concept for a 250 mA, Bi1 + test injector with four beamlets is developed at present, which could serve as a HIF driver front end element. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.