On Monday June 17th, the Director of the Legnaro National Laboratories, Prof. Faïçal Azaiez, visited the site of the European Spallation Source (ESS) in Lund.
Andrea Pisent, technical coordinator of INFN contribution to ESS, Francesco Grespan, who led the construction and installation of the Drift Tube Linac at ESS, and Carlo Baltador, researcher at INFN-LNL, were also present.
The visit of the LNL Director has taken place one year after the conclusion of the high power test of the Drift Tube Linac up to 74 MeV and it immediately precedes the restart of the accelerator, which starting from next July will complete the commissioning of the fifth DTL cavity and of the Superconducting Linac.
Håkan Danared, head of ESS accelerator division, guided the director in the visit of the accelerator, while Kevin Jones, Technical Director of ESS, guided the tour to Target and Detectors.
INFN contributes to the construction of the ESS linac with the injector, developed by the Southern National Laboratories, the intermediate energy superconducting elliptical cavities, made by the INFN Milano Unit and the five tanks of the Drift Tube Linac, designed and developed by the researchers of the INFN Legnaro National Laboratories and Turin Unit.
The ESS DTL will be the most powerful Drift Tube Linac in the world and constitutes the largest part of the ESS accelerator tested so far and brought to nominal performance. The results achieved in the ESS project demonstrate once more the ability of LNL and INFN to develop very high technology structures with full control of times and costs, the effectiveness of the teamwork between INFN structures and industrial partners in a large international collaboration.