Voltage Breakdown in a 420 MHz RFQ Structure

Designs for Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) accelerators of reasonable length require operation with surface fields above the threshold of Kilpatrick's Sparking Criterion. A cavity was designed using SUPERFISH to test the validity of this criterion and to determine operating limits for the Los Alamos Proof-of-Principle (POP) RFQ. The testing was done near 420 MHz, with varying qualities of surface finish on the electrodes. The experimental set-up and procedure are described, as are the data and results. A method of calibrating the test is presented.