Heavy ion linac as a high current proton beam injector

A significant part of the experimental program at Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) is dedicated to pbar physics requiring a high number of cooled pbars per hour. The primary proton beam has to be provided by a 70 MeV proton linac followed by two synchrotrons. The new FAIR proton linac will deliver a pulsed proton beam of up to 35 mA of $36\text{ }\text{ }\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{s}$ duration at a repetition rate of 4 Hz (maximum). The GSI heavy ion linac (UNILAC) is able to deliver world record uranium beam intensities for injection into the synchrotrons, but it is not suitable for FAIR relevant proton beam operation. In an advanced machine investigation program it could be shown that the UNILAC is able to provide for sufficient high intensities of ${\mathrm{CH}}_{3}$ beam, cracked (and stripped) in a supersonic nitrogen gas jet into protons and carbon ions. This advanced operational approach will result in up to 3 mA of proton intensity at a maximum beam energy of 20 MeV, $100\text{ }\text{ }\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{s}$ pulse duration and a repetition rate of up to 2.7 Hz delivered to the synchrotron SIS18. Recent linac beam measurements will be presented, showing that the UNILAC is able to serve as a proton FAIR injector for the first time, while the performance is limited to 25% of the FAIR requirements.