Commissioning of the SNS front-end systems at Berkeley Lab

Construction of a 2.5-MeV linac injector, the Front-End (FE) for the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) project, was completed in the spring of 2002.Of the major FE subsystems, the rf-driven H -ion source, the electrostatic LEBT, and the first of four RFQ modules had been commissioned by the spring of 2001, and commissioning of the remaining RFQ modules as well as the full system including the elaborate MEBT was carried out in Jan. through May, 2002.The Front End will be shipped to Oak Ridge, starting in June, 2002, and re-commissioned after installation at the SNS site.This paper gives an overview of FE major design features and experimental results obtained during the commissioning process at LBNL.