Distribution of the background gas in the MITICA accelerator

MITICA is the ITER neutral beam test facility to be built in Padova for the generation of a 40A D- ion beam with a 16×5×16 array of 1280 beamlets accelerated to 1MV. The background gas pressure distribution and the particle flows inside MITICA accelerator are critical aspects for stripping losses, generation of secondary particles and beam non-uniformities. To keep the stripping losses in the extraction and acceleration stages reasonably low, the source pressure should be 0.3 Pa or less. The gas flow in MITICA accelerator is being studied using a 3D Finite Element code, named Avocado. The gas-wall interaction model is based on the cosine law, and the whole vacuum system geometry is represented by a view factor matrix based on surface discretization and gas property definitions. Pressure distribution and mutual fluxes are then solved linearly. In this paper the result of a numerical simulation is presented, showing the steady-state pressure distribution inside the accelerator when gas enters the system at room temperature. The accelerator model is limited to a horizontal slice 400 mm high (14 of the accelerator height). The pressure profile at solid walls and through the beamlet axis is obtained, allowing the evaluation and the discussion of the background gas distribution and nonuniformity. The particle flux at the inlet and outlet boundaries (namely the grounded grid apertures and the lateral conductances respectively) will be discusse