Several beam manipulation methods have been studied and experimentally tested to generate two-color photon beams in free electron laser facilities to accommodate the user requests. We propose to use the interaction of the beam with an oscillating longitudinal wakefield source to obtain a suitable electron beam structure. The bunch generates two subpulses with different energies and delayed in time passing through a magnetic chicane after its longitudinal phase space has been modulated by the wakefield source. According to this approach the power of the emitted radiation is not degraded compared to the monochromatic beam, and the setup in the machine is quite simple because the bunch is manipulated only in the high energy section, where it is more rigid. We present the design applied to SwissFEL. We identified the parameters and the corresponding range of tunability of the time and energy separation among the two subbunches.

Feedback control of the longitudinal and transverse electron beam profiles are considered to be critical for beam control in accelerators. In the feedback scheme, the longitudinal or transverse beam profile is measured and compared to a desired profile to give an error estimate. The error is then used to act on the appropriate actuators to correct the profile. The role of the transverse feedback is to steer the beam in a particular trajectory, known as the “orbit.” The common approach for orbit correction is based on approximately inverting the response matrix, and in the best case, involves regulating or filtering the singular values. In the current contribution, a more systematic and structured way of handling orbit correction is introduced giving robustness against uncertainties in the response matrix. Moreover, the input bounds are treated to avoid violating the limits of the corrector currents. The concept of the robust orbit correction has been successfully tested at the SwissFEL injector test facility. In the SwissFEL machine, a photo-injector laser system extracts electrons from a cathode and a similar robust control method is developed for the longitudinal feedback control of the current profile of the electron bunch. The method manipulates the angles of the crystals in the laser system to produce a desired charge distribution over the electron bunch length. This approach paves the way towards automation of laser pulse stacking.

The generation of ultrashort electron bunches with ultrasmall bunch arrival-time jitter is of vital importance for laser-plasma wakefield acceleration with external injection. We study the production of 100-MeV electron bunches with bunch durations of subfemtosecond (fs) and bunch arrival-time jitters of less than 10 fs, in an S-band photoinjector by using a weak magnetic chicane with a slit collimator. The beam dynamics inside the chicane is simulated by using two codes with different self-force models. The first code separates the self-force into a three-dimensional (3D) quasistatic space-charge model and a one-dimensional coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) model, while the other one starts from the first principle with a so-called 3D sub-bunch method. The simulations indicate that the CSR effect dominates the horizontal emittance growth and the 1D CSR model underestimates the final bunch duration and emittance because of the very large transverse-to-longitudinal aspect ratio of the sub-fs bunch. Particularly, the CSR effect is also strongly affected by the vertical bunch size. Due to the coupling between the horizontal and longitudinal phase spaces, the bunch duration at the entrance of the last dipole magnet of the chicane is still significantly longer than that at the exit of the chicane, which considerably mitigates the impact of space charge and CSR effects on the beam quality. Exploiting this effect, a bunch charge of up to 4.8 pC in a sub-fs bunch could be simulated. In addition, we analytically and numerically investigate the impact of different jitter sources on the bunch arrival-time jitter downstream of the chicane, and define the tolerance budgets assuming realistic values of the stability of the linac for different bunch charges and compression schemes.

The beam heat load is an important input parameter needed for the cryogenic design of superconducting insertion devices. Theoretical models taking into account the different heating mechanisms of an electron beam to a cold bore predict smaller values than the ones measured with several superconducting insertion devices installed in different electron storage rings. In order to measure and possibly understand the beam heat load to a cold bore, a cold vacuum chamber for diagnostics (COLDDIAG) has been built. COLDDIAG is equipped with temperature sensors, pressure gauges, mass spectrometers as well as retarding field analyzers which allow to measure the beam heat load, total pressure, and gas content as well as the flux of particles hitting the chamber walls. COLDDIAG was installed in a straight section of the Diamond Light Source (DLS). In a previous paper the experimental equipment as well as the installation of COLDDIAG in the DLS are described [S. Gerstl et al., Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams 17, 103201 (2014)]. In this paper we present an overview of all the measurements performed with COLDDIAG at the DLS and their detailed analysis, as well as impedance bench measurements of the cold beam vacuum chamber performed at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology after removal from the DLS. Relevant conclusions for the cryogenic design of superconducting insertion devices are drawn from the obtained results.

This work describes the utilization of an injected ${{}^{23}\mathrm{Na}}^{1+}$ ion beam as a diagnostics of the helium plasma of a charge breeder electron cyclotron resonance ion source. The obtained data allows estimating the upper limit for the ion-ion collision mean-free path of the incident sodium ions, the lower limit of ion-ion collision frequencies for all charge states of the sodium ions and the lower limit of the helium plasma density. The ion-ion collision frequencies of high charge state ions are shown to be at least on the order of 1–10 MHz and the plasma density is estimated to be on the order of ${10}^{11}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$ or higher. The experimental results are compared to simulations of the ${{}^{23}\mathrm{Na}}^{1+}$ capture into the helium plasma. The results indicate that the lower breeding efficiency of light ions in comparison to heavier elements is probably due to different capture efficiencies in which the in-flight ionization of the incident $1+$ ions plays a vital role.

High gradient quadrupoles are key components for the coming generation of storage ring based light sources. The typical specifications of these magnets are: almost $100\mathrm{T}/\mathrm{m}$ gradient, half a meter long, and a vertical aperture for the extraction of the x-ray beam. This paper presents the preparation work done at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, from the design to the manufacture and measurements of a prototype. It demonstrates the feasibility of such magnets. Different aspects of magnet engineering are discussed, including the study of the main scale factors and the preliminary design, the pole shaping, the impact of mechanical errors, and the magnetic measurements of a prototype with a stretched-wire system.

Building more compact accelerators to deliver high brightness electron beams for the generation of high flux, highly coherent radiation is a priority for the photon science community. A relatively straightforward reduction in footprint can be achieved by using high-gradient X-band (11.4 GHz) rf technology. To this end, an X-band injector consisting of a 5.5 cell rf gun and a 1-m long linac has been commissioned at SLAC. It delivers an 85 MeV electron beam with peak brightness somewhat better than that achieved in S-band photoinjectors, such as the one developed for the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS). The X-band rf gun operates with up to a $200\mathrm{MV}/\mathrm{m}$ peak field on the cathode, and has been used to produce bunches of a few pC to 1.2 nC in charge. Notably, bunch lengths as short as 120 fs rms have been measured for charges of 5 pC ($\sim 3\times {10}^7$ electrons), and normalized transverse emittances as small as 0.22 mm-mrad have been measured for this same charge level. Bunch lengths as short as 400 (250) fs rms have been achieved for electron bunches of 100 (20) pC with transverse normalized emittances of 0.7 (0.35) mm-mrad. We report on the performance and the lessons learned from the operation and optimization of this first generation X-band gun.

We present an experimental study of a high gradient metallic accelerating structure at sub-THz frequencies, where we investigated the physics of rf breakdowns. Wakefields in the structure were excited by an ultrarelativistic electron beam. We present the first quantitative measurements of gradients and metal vacuum rf breakdowns in sub-THz accelerating cavities. When the beam travels off axis, a deflecting field is induced in addition to the longitudinal field. We measured the deflecting forces by observing the displacement and changes in the shape of the electron bunch. This behavior can be exploited for subfemtosecond beam diagnostics.

A compact, harmonically resonant cavity with fundamental resonant frequency 1497 MHz was used to evaluate the temporal characteristics of electron bunches produced by a 130 kV dc high voltage spin-polarized photoelectron source at the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) photoinjector, delivered at 249.5 and 499 MHz repetition rates and ranging in width from 45 to 150 picoseconds (FWHM). A cavity antenna attached directly to a sampling oscilloscope detected the electron bunches as they passed through the cavity bore with a sensitivity of $\sim 1\mathrm{mV}/\mu \mathrm{A}$. The oscilloscope waveforms are a superposition of the harmonic modes excited by the beam, with each cavity mode representing a term of the Fourier series of the electron bunch train. Relatively straightforward post-processing of the waveforms provided a near-real time representation of the electron bunches revealing bunch-length and the relative phasing of interleaved beams. The noninvasive measurements from the harmonically resonant cavity were compared to measurements obtained using an invasive RF-deflector-cavity technique and to predictions from particle tracking simulations.

The beam coupling impedance is one of the main sources of beam instabilities and emittance blow up in circular accelerators. A refined machine impedance evaluation is therefore required in order to understand and model intensity dependent effects and instabilities that may limit the machine performance. For this reason, many impedance source localization techniques have been developed. In this work we present the impedance localization technique based on the observation of phase advance versus intensity at the beam position monitors using ac dipoles to force betatron oscillations. We present analytical formulas for the interpretation of measurements together with simulations to benchmark and illustrate the equations. Studies on the method accuracy for different Fourier transform algorithms are presented as well as first exploratory measurements performed in the LHC.

Measurements of the multishot-averaged, soft x-ray, self-seeding spectrum at the LCLS free-electron laser often have a pedestal-like distribution around the seeded wavelength, which limits the spectral purity and can negatively affect some user applications not employing a post-undulator monochromator. In this paper, we study the origins of such pedestals, focusing on longitudinal phase space modulations produced by the microbunching instability upstream of the free-electron laser (FEL) undulator. We show from theory and numerical simulation that both energy and density modulations can induce sidebands in a high-gain, seeded FEL whose fractional strength typically grows as the square of the undulator length. The results place a tight constraint on the longitudinal phase space uniformity of the electron beam for a seeded FEL, possibly requiring the amplitude of long-wavelength modulations to be much smaller than the typical incoherent energy spread if the output sideband power is to remain only a couple percent or less of the amplified seed power.

The properties of laser wakefield accelerated electrons in supersonic gas flows of hydrogen and helium are investigated. At identical backing pressure, we find that electron beams emerging from helium show large variations in their spectral and spatial distributions, whereas electron beams accelerated in hydrogen plasmas show a higher degree of reproducibility. In an experimental investigation of the relation between neutral gas density and backing pressure, it is found that the resulting number density for helium is $\sim 30\%$ higher than for hydrogen at the same backing pressure. The observed differences in electron beam properties between the two gases can thus be explained by differences in plasma electron density. This interpretation is verified by repeating the laser wakefield acceleration experiment using similar plasma electron densities for the two gases, which then yielded electron beams with similar properties.

A design of a compact hadron driver for future cancer therapies based on the induction synchrotron concept is presented. To realize a slow extraction technique in a fast-cycling synchrotron, which allows energy sweep beam scanning, a zero momentum-dispersion $D(s)$ region and a high flat $D(s)$ region are necessary. The proposed design meets both requirements. The lattice has two-fold symmetry with a circumference of 52.8 m, a 2-m dispersion-free straight section, and a 3-m-long large flat dispersion straight section. Assuming a 1.5-T bending magnet, the ring can deliver heavy ions ($200\mathrm{MeV}/\mathrm{u}$) at 10 Hz. A beam fraction is dropped from the barrier bucket at the desired timing, and the increasing negative momentum deviation of this beam fraction becomes large enough for the fraction to fall in the electrostatic septum extraction gap, which is placed at the large $D(s)$ region. The programmed energy sweep extraction enables scanning beam irradiation on a cancer site in depth without an energy degrader, avoiding the production of secondary particles and the degradation of emittance. Details of the lattice parameters and computer simulations for slow extraction are discussed. An example extraction scenario is presented. Qualities of the spilled beam such as emittance and momentum spread are discussed, as well as necessary functions and parameters required for the extraction system.

We have developed an interdigital H-mode (IH) drift-tube linac (DTL) design with an alternative phase focusing (APF) scheme for a muon linac, in order to measure the anomalous magnetic moment and electric dipole moment (EDM) of muons at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC). The IH-DTL accelerates muons from $\beta =v/c=0.08$ to 0.28 at an operational frequency of 324 MHz. The output beam emittances are calculated as $0.315\pi$ and $0.195\pi \mathrm{mm}\mathrm{mrad}$ in the horizontal and vertical directions, respectively, which satisfies the experimental requirement.

A multiobjective genetic algorithm is developed for optimizing nonlinearities in diffraction limited storage rings. This algorithm determines sextupole and octupole strengths for chromaticity correction that deliver optimized dynamic aperture and beam lifetime. The algorithm makes use of dominance constraints to breed desirable properties into the early generations. The momentum aperture is optimized indirectly by constraining the chromatic tune footprint and optimizing the off-energy dynamic aperture. The result is an effective and computationally efficient technique for correcting chromaticity in a storage ring while maintaining optimal dynamic aperture and beam lifetime.

Recently various laser-chirping schemes have been investigated with the goal of reducing or eliminating ponderomotive line broadening in Compton or Thomson scattering occurring at high laser intensities. As a next level of detail in the spectrum calculations, we have calculated the line smoothing and broadening expected due to incident beam energy spread within a one-dimensional plane wave model for the incident laser pulse, both for compensated (chirped) and unchirped cases. The scattered compensated distributions are treatable analytically within three models for the envelope of the incident laser pulses: Gaussian, Lorentzian, or hyperbolic secant. We use the new results to demonstrate that the laser chirping in Compton sources at high laser intensities: (i) enables the use of higher order harmonics, thereby reducing the required electron beam energies; and (ii) increases the photon yield in a small frequency band beyond that possible with the fundamental without chirping. This combination of chirping and higher harmonics can lead to substantial savings in the design, construction and operational costs of the new Compton sources. This is of particular importance to the widely popular laser-plasma accelerator based Compton sources, as the improvement in their beam quality enters the regime where chirping is most effective.

A new system used for monitoring energetic Coulomb-scattered electrons as the main diagnostic for accurately aligning the electron and ion beams in the new Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) electron lenses is described in detail. The theory of electron scattering from relativistic ions is developed and applied to the design and implementation of the system used to achieve and maintain the alignment. Commissioning with gold and ${}^3\mathrm{He}$ beams is then described as well as the successful utilization of the new system during the 2015 RHIC polarized proton run. Systematic errors of the new method are then estimated. Finally, some possible future applications of Coulomb-scattered electrons for beam diagnostics are briefly discussed.

The influence of incoherent wakefields arising from a high current beam circulating in a ring composed of many flat chambers on the beam is analyzed numerically and experimentally for the SOLEIL storage ring. Three distinct ranges of the excited field are studied: the long multiturn regime in multibunch fillings, the medium regime involving neighboring bunches, and the short intrabunch regime. Two theoretical models, which both take into account the field diffusion across chamber walls of finite thickness, are employed to compare the measurement with theoretical expectations. Specific experimental methods, based respectively upon orbit analysis, bunch-by-bunch transverse feedback and a single particle betatron resonance, are introduced to measure the incoherent focusing effect in the three regimes. It is found that the excited incoherent fields can be large enough to affect the ring performance. The non-negligible contribution of nonevaporable getter coating is shown to improve the agreement between measurements and calculations.