Search Results (11 total)

Clouds of low energy electrons in the vacuum beam pipes of accelerators of positively charged particle beams present a serious limitation for operation at high currents. Furthermore, it is difficult to probe their density over substantial lengths of the beam pipe. We have developed a novel technique to directly measure the electron cloud density via the phase shift induced in a TE wave transmitted over a section of the accelerator and used it to measure the average electron cloud density over a 50 m section in the positron ring of the PEP-II collider at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

We report the first observation of laser seeding of the storage-ring microbunching instability. Above a threshold bunch current, the interaction of the beam and its radiation results in a coherent instability, observed as a series of stochastic bursts of coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) at terahertz frequencies initiated by fluctuations in the beam density. We have observed that this effect can be seeded by imprinting an initial density modulation on the beam by means of laser “slicing.” In such a situation, most of the bursts of CSR become synchronous with the pulses of the modulating laser and their average intensity scales exponentially with the current per bunch. We present detailed experimental observations of the seeding effect and a model of the phenomenon. This seeding mechanism also creates potential applications as a high-power source of CSR at terahertz frequencies.

We present a new method to generate steady and tunable, coherent, broadband terahertz radiation from a relativistic electron beam modulated by a femtosecond laser. We have demonstrated this in the electron storage ring at the Advanced Light Source. Interaction of an electron beam with a femtosecond laser pulse copropagating through a wiggler modulates the electron energies within a short slice of the electron bunch with about the same duration of the laser pulse. The bunch develops a longitudinal density perturbation due to the dispersion of electron trajectories, and the resulting hole emits short pulses of temporally and spatially coherent terahertz pulses synchronized to the laser. We present measurements of the intensity and spectra of these pulses. This technique allows tremendous flexibility in shaping the terahertz pulse by appropriate modulation of the laser pulse.

We present a model describing high power stable broadband coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) in the terahertz frequency region in an electron storage ring. The model includes distortion of bunch shape from the synchrotron radiation (SR), which enhances higher frequency coherent emission, and limits to stable emission due to an instability excited by the SR wakefield. It gives a quantitative explanation of several features of the recent observations of CSR at the BESSY II storage ring. We also use this model to optimize the performance of a source for stable CSR emission.

Bursts of coherent synchrotron radiation at far-infrared and millimeter wavelengths have been observed at several storage rings. A microbunching instability has been proposed as the source for the bursts. However, the microbunching mechanism has yet to be elucidated. We provide the first evidence that the bursts are due to a microbunching instability driven by the emission of synchrotron radiation in the bunch. Observations made at the Advanced Light Source are consistent with the values predicted by the proposed microbunching model. These results demonstrate a new instability regime for high energy synchrotron radiation sources and could impact the design of future sources.

Harmonic cavities have been used in storage rings to lengthen bunches and increase beam lifetimes dominated by Touschek scattering. Transient beam loading in the harmonic cavities generated by asymmetries in the fill pattern causes significant variation of the bunch synchronous phase and bunch length along the bunch train when the longitudinal restoring force has been reduced. This results in a significant reduction in the mean bunch lengthening and potential lifetime increase. We describe how beam current modulations give rise to transient effects much larger than expected from the linear model of the beam cavity interaction. We also develop a tracking simulation to predict results and apply this simulation to an analysis of the beam loading transients for the case of passive and active normal and superconducting third harmonic rf systems using Advanced Light Source parameters.

In this paper we present two new techniques for frequency-resolved characterization of longitudinal impedances in storage rings. The first method is based on transient measurements of the growth rates and tune shifts of unstable coupled-bunch modes. In the second approach, estimates of the impedances are obtained from analysis of the steady-state synchronous phases of the bunches for uneven fill patterns. These techniques are applicable to measurements of both fundamental and higher-order mode (HOM) impedances and allow characterization of shunt impedances and quality factors of the HOMs. Methods presented here are complementary to laboratory bench measurements of rf cavities, in that the beam-based measurements directly sense the physical impedance in the installed configuration. Experimental results from the Advanced Light Source and BESSY-II are presented showing the use of these techniques to measure complex impedances.

Harmonic cavities have been used in storage rings to increase beam lifetime and Landau damping by lengthening the bunch. The need for lifetime increase is particularly great in the present generation of low to medium energy synchrotron light sources where the small transverse beam sizes lead to relatively short lifetimes from large-angle intrabeam (Touschek) scattering. We review the beam dynamics of harmonic radio-frequency systems and discuss optimization of the beam lifetime using passive harmonic cavities.

We present the results of an experimental study of the longitudinal beam dynamics at injection in the advanced light source, an electron storage ring. By measuring the longitudinal bunch distribution following injection using a streak camera, we were able to study several useful and interesting effects as well as improve overall injection efficiency. These include measurement and correction of the phase and energy offsets at injection, measurement of the injected bunch length and energy spread, direct observation of phase space filamentation due to the spread in synchrotron frequencies, and measurement of the effective damping rate of the bunch shape including radiation damping and decoherence. We have also made some initial studies of the decay of an uncaptured beam at injection which may provide a novel means of measuring the radiation loss per turn.

Accelerating structures with damped higher-order modes (HOMs) have been the focus of many studies over the past decade. This report compares the results of numerical simulations of damping of HOMs using a new calculation technique applied to the case of the PEP-II rf cavity. We compare these results using this technique, which was not yet developed at the time of the original design, with bench and beam-based measurements of the HOM damping. These results show agreement with bench measurements of the shunt impedances of the strongest HOMs as well as measurements of the beam-induced signals on cavities installed in PEP-II.

We present results of experimental studies of the nonlinear dynamics of synchrotron oscillations in the presence of phase modulation in an electron storage ring. A streak camera is used to observe the longitudinal distribution of an electron bunch directly as it forms two stable resonant islands. The positions of the fixed points as a function of modulation frequency agree well with theory. We also present measurements of the diffusion rate from one stable island to the other for a fixed modulation frequency, which show agreement with the diffusion rates expected from large-angle intrabeam (Touschek) scattering. These results also explain anomalous results of beam transfer function diagnostic measurements obtained at other electron storage rings.