Noninterceptive beam profile monitors are of great importance for many particle accelerators worldwide. Extra challenges are posed by high energy, high intensity machines and low energy low intensity accelerators. For these applications, existing diagnostics are no longer suitable due to the high power of the beam or the very low intensity. In addition, many other accelerators, from medical to industrial will benefit from a noninvasive, real time beam profile monitor. In this paper we present a new beam profile monitor with a novel design for the nozzle and skimmer configuration to generate a supersonic gas jet meeting ultrahigh vacuum conditions and we describe the first results for such a beam profile monitor at the Cockcroft Institute. This monitor is able to measure two-dimensional profiles of the particle beam while causing negligible disturbance to the beam or to the accelerator vacuum. The ultimate goal for this diagnostic is to provide a versatile and universal beam profile monitor suitable for measuring any beams.

Inverse Compton scattering (ICS) is a unique mechanism for producing fast pulses—picosecond and below—of bright photons, ranging from x to $\gamma$ rays. These nominally narrow spectral bandwidth electromagnetic radiation pulses are efficiently produced in the interaction between intense, well-focused electron and laser beams. The spectral characteristics of such sources are affected by many experimental parameters, with intense laser effects often dominant. A laser field capable of inducing relativistic oscillatory motion may give rise to harmonic generation and, importantly for the present work, nonlinear redshifting, both of which dilute the spectral brightness of the radiation. As the applications enabled by this source often depend sensitively on its spectra, it is critical to resolve the details of the wavelength and angular distribution obtained from ICS collisions. With this motivation, we present an experimental study that greatly improves on previous spectral measurement methods based on x-ray $K$-edge filters, by implementing a multilayer bent-crystal x-ray spectrometer. In tandem with a collimating slit, this method reveals a projection of the double differential angular-wavelength spectrum of the ICS radiation in a single shot. The measurements enabled by this diagnostic illustrate the combined off-axis and nonlinear-field-induced redshifting in the ICS emission process. The spectra obtained illustrate in detail the strength of the normalized laser vector potential, and provide a nondestructive measure of the temporal and spatial electron-laser beam overlap.

The magnetron ${\mathrm{H}}^{-}$ ion sources developed in the 1970s currently in operation at Fermilab provide beam to the rest of the accelerator complex. A series of modifications to these sources have been tested in a dedicated off-line test stand with the aim of improving different operational issues. The solenoid type gas valve was tested as an alternative to the piezoelectric gas valve in order to avoid its temperature dependence. A new cesium oven was designed and tested in order to avoid glass pieces that were present with the previous oven, improve thermal insulation and fine-tune its temperature. A current-regulated arc modulator was developed to run the ion source at a constant arc current, providing very stable beam outputs during operations. In order to reduce beam noise, the addition of small amounts of ${\mathrm{N}}_2$ gas was explored, as well as testing different cathode shapes with increasing plasma volume. This paper summarizes the studies and modifications done in the source over the past three years with the aim of improving its stability, reliability and overall performance.

We propose a novel gridless continuous-wave radiofrequency (rf) thermionic gun capable of generating nC ns electron bunches with a rms normalized slice emittance close to the thermal level of 0.3 mm mrad. In order to gate the electron emission, an externally heated thermionic cathode is installed into a stripline-loop conductor. Two high-voltage pulses propagating towards each other in the stripline-loop overlap in the cathode region and create a quasielectrostatic field gating the electron emission. The repetition rate of pulses is variable and can reach up to one MHz with modern solid-state pulsers. The stripline attached to a rf gun cavity wall has with the wall a common aperture that allows the electrons to be injected into the rf cavity for further acceleration. Thanks to this innovative gridless design, simulations suggest that the bunch emittance is approximately at the thermal level after the bunch injection into the cavity provided that the geometry of the cathode and aperture are properly designed. Specifically, a concave cathode is adopted to imprint an Ƨ-shaped distribution onto the beam transverse phase-space to compensate for an S-shaped beam distribution created by the spherical aberration of the aperture-cavity region. In order to compensate for the energy spread caused by rf fields of the rf gun cavity, a 3rd harmonic cavity is used. A detailed study of the electrodynamics of the stripline and rf gun cavity as well as the beam optics and bunch dynamics are presented.

Control of the properties of laser-plasma-accelerated electron beams that were injected along a shock-induced density downramp through precision tailoring of the density profile was demonstrated using a 1.8 J, 45 fs laser interacting with a mm-scale gas jet. The effects on the beam spatial profile, steering, and absolute energy spread of the density region before the shock and tilt of the shock were investigated experimentally and with particle-in-cell simulations. By adjusting these density parameters, the electron beam quality was controlled and improved while the energy (30–180 MeV) and energy spread (2–11 MeV) were independently tuned. Simple models that are in good agreement with the experimental results are proposed to explain these relationships, advancing the understanding of downramp injection. This technique allows for high-quality electron beams with percent-level energy spread to be tailored based on the application.

We perform Joule power loss calculations for a flat dechirper. We consider the configurations of the beam on-axis between the two plates—for chirp control—and for the beam especially close to one plate—for use as a fast kicker. Our calculations use a surface impedance approach, one that is valid when corrugation parameters are small compared to aperture (the perturbative parameter regime). We find that most of the wake power lost by the beam is radiated out to the sides of the plates. For the case of the beam passing by a single plate, we derive an analytical expression for the broadband impedance. Our analytical results are also tested by numerical, time-domain simulations. While our theory can be applied to the LCLS-II dechirper with large gaps, for the nominal apertures we are not in the perturbative regime. With input from computer simulations, we estimate the Joule power loss for nominal apertures (assuming bunch charge of 300 pC, repetition rate of 100 kHz) is $21\mathrm{W}/\mathrm{m}$ for the case of two plates, and $24\mathrm{W}/\mathrm{m}$ for the case of a single plate.

The shot-noise driven microbunching instability can significantly degrade electron beam quality in x-ray free electron laser light sources. Experiments were carried out at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) to study this instability. In this paper, we present start-to-end simulations of the shot-noise driven microbunching instability experiment at the LCLS using the real number of electrons. The simulation results reproduce the measurements quite well. A microbunching self-heating mechanism is also illustrated in the simulation, which helps explain the experimental observation.

Simulating beam loading in radio frequency accelerating structures is critical for understanding higher-order mode effects on beam dynamics, such as beam break-up instability in energy recovery linacs. Full wave simulations of beam loading in radio frequency structures are computationally expensive, while reduced models can ignore essential physics and can be difficult to generalize. We present a self-consistent algorithm derived from the least-action principle which can model an arbitrary number of cavity eigenmodes and with a generic beam distribution. It has been implemented in our new Open Library for Invesitigating Vacuum Electronics (OLIVE).

For a high-brightness electron beam with high bunch charge traversing a recirculation beam line, coherent synchrotron radiation and space charge effects may result in microbunching instability (MBI). Both tracking simulation and Vlasov analysis for an early design of a circulator cooler ring (CCR) for the Jefferson Lab Electron Ion Collider (JLEIC) reveal significant MBI [Ya. Derbenev and Y. Zhang, Proceedings of the Workshop on Beam Cooling and Related Topics, COOL’09, Lanzhou, China, 2009 (2009), FRM2MCCO01]. It is envisioned that the MBI could be substantially suppressed by using a magnetized beam. In this paper we have generalized the existing Vlasov analysis, originally developed for a nonmagnetized beam (or transversely uncoupled beam), to the description of transport of a magnetized beam including relevant collective effects. The new formulation is then employed to confirm prediction of microbunching suppression for a magnetized beam transport in the recirculation arc of a recent JLEIC energy recovery linac (ERL) based cooler design for electron cooling. It is found that the smearing effect in the longitudinal beam phase space originates from the large transverse beam size as a nature of the magnetized beams and becomes effective through the $x-z$ correlation when the correlated distance is larger than the microbunched scale. As a comparison, MBI analysis of the early design of JLEIC CCR is also presented in this paper.

The 40 years old GSI-UNILAC (Universal Linear Accelerator) as well as the heavy ion synchrotron SIS18 will serve as a high current heavy ion injector for the new FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) synchrotron SIS100. In the context of an advanced machine investigation program in combination with the ongoing UNILAC upgrade program, a new uranium beam intensity record (11.5 emA, ${\mathrm{U}}^{29+}$) at very high beam brilliance was achieved recently in a machine experiment campaign. This is an important step paving the way to fulfill the FAIR heavy ion high intensity beam requirements. Results of high current uranium beam measurements applying a newly developed pulsed hydrogen gas stripper (at $1.4\mathrm{MeV}/\mathrm{u}$) will be presented in detail.

The manuscript describes several monochromatization schemes starting from A. Renieri’s [Report No. LNF-75/6(R)] proposal for head-on collisions based on correlation between particles transverse position and energy deviation. We briefly explain the initial proposal and expand it for crossing angle collisions. Then we discuss new monochromatization scheme for crossing angle collisions based on correlation between particles longitudinal position and energy deviation.

A Compact Linear Collider prototype traveling-wave accelerator structure fabricated at Tsinghua University was recently high-gradient tested at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK). This $X$-band structure showed good high-gradient performance of up to $100\mathrm{MV}/\mathrm{m}$ and obtained a breakdown rate of $1.27\times {10}^{-8}$ per pulse per meter at a pulse length of 250 ns. This performance was similar to that of previous structures tested at KEK and the test facility at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), thereby validating the assembly and bonding of the fabricated structure. Phenomena related to vacuum breakdown were investigated and are discussed in the present study. Evaluation of the breakdown timing revealed a special type of breakdown occurring in the immediately succeeding pulse after a usual breakdown. These breakdowns tended to occur at the beginning of the rf pulse, whereas usual breakdowns were uniformly distributed in the rf pulse. The high-gradient test was conducted under the international collaboration research program among Tsinghua University, CERN, and KEK.

We propose a method based on the slice energy spread modulation to generate strong subpicosecond density bunching in high-intensity relativistic electron beams. A laser pulse with periodic intensity envelope is used to modulate the slice energy spread of the electron beam, which can then be converted into density modulation after a dispersive section. It is found that the double-horn slice energy distribution of the electron beam induced by the laser modulation is very effective to increase the density bunching. Since the modulation is performed on a relativistic electron beam, the process does not suffer from strong space charge force or coupling between phase spaces, so that it is straightforward to preserve the beam quality for terahertz (THz) radiation and other applications. We show in both theory and simulations that the tunable radiation from the beam can cover the frequency range of 1–10 THz with high power and narrow-band spectra.

A novel technique has been developed to improve the precision and shorten the measurement time of the LOCO (linear optics from closed orbits) method. This technique, named AC LOCO, is based on sine-wave (ac) beam excitation via fast correctors. Such fast correctors are typically installed at synchrotron light sources for the fast orbit feedback. The beam oscillations are measured by beam position monitors. The narrow band used for the beam excitation and measurement not only allows us to suppress effectively the beam position noise but also opens the opportunity for simultaneously exciting multiple correctors at different frequencies (multifrequency mode). We demonstrated at NSLS-II that AC LOCO provides better lattice corrections and works much faster than the traditional LOCO method.

Altering the optics in one section of a linear accelerator beam line will in general cause an alteration of the optics in all downstream sections. In circular accelerators, changing the optical properties of any beam-line element will have an impact on the optical functions throughout the whole machine. In many cases, however, it is desirable to change the optics in a certain beam-line section without disturbing any other parts of the machine. Such a local optics manipulation can be achieved by adjusting a number of additional corrector magnets that restore the initial optics after the manipulated section. In that case, the effect of the manipulation is confined in the region between the manipulated and the correcting beam-line elements. Introducing a manipulation continuously, while the machine is operating, therefore requires continuous correction functions to be applied to the correcting quadrupole magnets. In this paper, we present an approach to calculate such continuous correction functions for six quadrupole magnets by means of a homotopy method. Besides a detailed derivation of the method, we present its application to an algebraic example, as well as its demonstration at the seeding experiment sFLASH at the free-electron laser FLASH located at DESY in Hamburg.

We report the experience of the production, processing and qualification testing of the superconducting radio frequency cavities at 3.9 GHz for the third harmonic system at the European XFEL (EXFEL) injector. The rf structure concept, originally developed for the FLASH FEL facility, was adapted to the new interfaces provided by the EXFEL design and the cavities were procured from a qualified vendor, delivered ready for the testing at the INFN infrastructure. A total of 23 cavities, three prototypes and two batches of 10, have been realized and tested up to specifications.

For the Compact Linear Collider project at CERN, the power for the main linacs is extracted from a drive beam generated from a high current electron source. The design of the electron source and its subsequent focusing channel has a great impact on the beam dynamic considerations of the drive beam. We report the design of a thermionic electron source and the subsequent focusing channels with the goal of production of a high quality beam with a very small emittance.