Search Results (3 total)

A microbunching instability driven by longitudinal space charge, coherent synchrotron radiation, and linac wakefields is studied for the linac coherent light source (LCLS) accelerator system. Since the uncorrelated (local) energy spread of electron beams generated from a photocathode rf gun is very small, the microbunching gain may be large enough to significantly amplify rf-gun generated modulations or even shot-noise fluctuations of the electron beam. The uncorrelated energy spread can be increased by an order of magnitude to provide strong Landau damping against the instability without degrading the free-electron laser performance. We study different damping options in the LCLS and discuss an effective laser heater to minimize the impact of the instability on the quality of the electron beam.

BL11, the most recently installed wiggler in the SPEAR storage ring at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, produces a large nonlinear perturbation of the electron beam dynamics, which was not directly evident in the integrated magnetic field measurements. Measurements of tune shifts with betatron oscillation amplitude and closed orbit shifts were used to characterize the nonlinear fields. Because of the narrow pole width in BL11, the nonlinear fields seen along the wiggling electron trajectory are dramatically different from the magnetic measurements made along a straight line with a stretched wire. This difference explains the tune shift measurements and the observed degradation in dynamic aperture. Because of the relatively large dispersion (1.2 m) at BL11, the nonlinearities particularly reduced the off-energy dynamic aperture. Because of the nature of these nonlinear fields, it is impossible, even theoretically, to cancel them completely with short multipole correctors. Magic finger corrector magnets were built, however, that partially correct the nonlinear perturbation, greatly improving the storage ring performance.

Although the linearized theory of small amplitude synchrotron oscillations and the instability thresholds derived from it have long been understood, there is no satisfactory description of the large amplitude highly nonlinear synchrotron motion of a bunched beam. With an appropriate tuning of the RF cavity impedance, large amplitude, low frequency, self-sustained relaxation oscillations of this synchrotron motion are generated. This paper presents detailed experimental data on such behavior, tracking code results that reproduce the important characteristics, and a simple analytical model that explains the key features of the relaxation oscillation: growth of the instability, saturation of the oscillation, breakup of the bunch, and subsequent damping of the system back to the beginning of the next cycle of the relaxation oscillation.