Design and commissioning of a windowless gas-target system for high-current beams at JUNA
Windowless gas targets avoid the beam-energy loss and straggling introduced by entrance foils and are therefore well suited for direct measurements of low-energy nuclear reactions. A windowless gas-target system designed for operation with milliampere beams has been developed for the Jinping Underground Nuclear Astrophysics facility (JUNA). The system combines three-stage differential pumping, closed-loop gas recovery and purification, a constant-temperature power-compensation calorimeter, and a position-resolved target-thickness monitor based on secondary elastic scattering. Stable operation was achieved over a target-pressure range of 1-3 mbar, with pressure fluctuations below 1% during 8 h of continuous circulation, while the accelerator-side pressure was maintained at approximately \(10^{-4}\) Pa. The closed-loop gas-circulation system maintained stable target conditions, while gas-transport calculations indicated that the axial pressure nonuniformity remained within approximately 1.6% under representative operating conditions. Calorimeter measurements were consistent with the thermal calculations, supporting the sensitivity correction used for beam-power determination. Beam commissioning with \(^{14}\mathrm{N}(p,γ)^{15}\mathrm{O}\) and \(^{12}\mathrm{C}(p,γ)^{13}\mathrm{N}\) at the 600 kV Cockcroft-Walton accelerator of the China Institute of Atomic Energy (CIAE) demonstrated stable operation of the gas-target and \(γ\)-ray detection systems and provided information on the influences of reaction position and beam heating. These results demonstrate the operating stability and diagnostic capability of the system for future high-current, low-energy nuclear-reaction measurements at JUNA.