Two-beam instability in electron cooling

The drift motion of cooling electrons makes them able to respond to transverse perturbations of a cooled ion beam. This response may lead to dipole or quadrupole transverse instabilities at specific longitudinal wave numbers. While the dipole instabilities can be suppressed by a combination of the Landau damping, machine impedance, and the active damper, the quadrupole and higher order modes can lead to either emittance growth, or a lifetime degradation, or both. The growth rates of these instabilities are strongly determined by the machine x-y coupling. Thus, tuning out of the coupling resonance and/or reduction of the machine coupling can be an efficient remedy for these instabilities.