THE CONTINUOUS ELECTRON BEAM ACCELERATOR FACILITY: CEBAF at the Jefferson Laboratory

The Jefferson Laboratory's superconducting radiofrequency (srf) Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) provides multi-GeV continuous-wave (cw) beams for experiments at the nuclear and particle physics interface. CEBAF comprises two antiparallel linacs linked by nine recirculation beam lines for up to five passes. By the early 1990s, accelerator installation was proceeding in parallel with commissioning. By the mid-1990s, CEBAF was providing simultaneous beams at different but correlated energies up to 4 GeV to three experimental halls. By 2000, with srf development having raised the average cavity gradient to 7.5 MV/m, energies up to nearly 6 GeV were routine, at 1–150 μA for two halls and 1–100 nA for the other. Also routine are beams of >75% polarization. Physics results have led to new questions about the quark structure of nuclei, and therefore to user demand for a planned 12 GeV upgrade. CEBAF's enabling srf technology is also being applied in other projects.