The proposed Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA) Facility, an innovative exotic-beam facility for the production of high-quality beams of short-lived isotopes, consists of a fully superconducting 1.4 GV driver linac and a 140 MV postaccelerator. To produce sufficient intensities of secondary beams the driver linac will provide 400 kW primary beams of any ion from hydrogen to uranium. Because of the high intensity of the primary beams the beam losses must be minimized to avoid radioactivation of the accelerator equipment. To keep the power deposited by the particles lost on the accelerator structures below $1\mathrm{W}/\mathrm{m}$, the relative beam losses per unit length should be less than ${10}^{-5}$, especially along the high-energy section of the linac. A new beam dynamics simulation code TRACK has been developed and used for beam loss studies in the RIA driver linac. In the TRACK code, ions are tracked through the three-dimensional electromagnetic fields of every element of the linac starting from the electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source to the production target. The simulation starts with a multicomponent dc ion beam extracted from the ECR. The space charge forces are included in the simulations. They are especially important in the front end of the driver linac. Beam losses are studied by tracking a large number of particles (up to ${10}^6$) through the whole linac considering all sources of error such us element misalignments, rf field errors, and stripper thickness fluctuations. For each configuration of the linac, multiple sets of error values have been randomly generated and used in the calculations. The results are then combined to calculate important beam parameters, estimate beam losses, and characterize the corresponding linac configuration. To track a large number of particles for a comprehensive number of error sets (up to 500), the code TRACK was parallelized and run on the Jazz computer cluster at ANL.

Third harmonic passive RF cavities have been proposed for installation in both rings of the $\mathrm{D}\mathrm{A}\Phi \mathrm{N}\mathrm{E}$ factory collider to improve the Touschek lifetime and to increase the Landau damping. This paper illustrates the design of the harmonic cavities. The main requirements were to obtain a relatively low $R/Q$ factor and a quality factor $Q$ as high as possible to satisfy beam dynamics requirements and to damp all the higher order mode (HOM) to a harmless level in order to avoid multibunch instabilities. A spherical shape of the cavity central body has been chosen as an optimum compromise between a high $Q$ resonator and a low $R/Q$ factor. HOM suppression has been provided by a ferrite ring damper designed for the superconducting cavities of the high energy ring of the KEK-B factory. The design and electromagnetic properties of the resonant modes have been studied with MAFIA and HFSS codes. Cavities have been made of aluminum and the RF measurements have been performed to characterize them. The measurements are in a good agreement with numerical simulations results, demonstrating a satisfactory HOM damping.

We present the experimental investigation of a collective effect driving strong modulation in the longitudinal phase space of a high-brightness electron beam. The measured beam energy spectrum was analyzed in order to reveal the main parameters of modulation. The experimental results were compared with a model of space-charge oscillations in the beam longitudinal phase space. The measurements and analysis allowed us to determine the range of the parameters of the observed effect on the modulation dynamics and illustrate its potential impact on short-wavelength free-electron laser performance.

A small electrostatic storage ring is the central machine of the Frankfurt Ion Storage Experiments (FIRE) which will be built at the new Stern-Gerlach Center of Frankfurt University. As a true multiuser, multipurpose facility with ion energies up to 50 keV, it will allow new methods to analyze complex many-particle systems from atoms to very large biomolecules. With envisaged storage times of some seconds and beam emittances in the order of a few mm mrad, measurements with up to 6 orders of magnitude better resolutions as compared to single-pass experiments become possible. In comparison to earlier designs, the ring lattice was modified in many details: Problems in earlier designs were related to, e.g., the detection of light particles and highly charged ions with different charge states. Therefore, the deflectors were redesigned completely, allowing a more flexible positioning of the diagnostics. Here, after an introduction to the concept of electrostatic machines, an overview of the planned FIRE is given and the ring lattice and elements are described in detail.

In heavy-ion inertial-confinement fusion systems, intense beams of ions must be transported from the exit of the final-focus magnet system through the fusion chamber to hit spots on the target with radii of about 2 mm. For the heavy-ion-fusion power-plant scenarios presently favored in the U.S., a substantial fraction of the ion-beam space charge must be neutralized during this final transport. The most effective neutralization technique found in numerical simulations is to pass each beam through a low-density plasma after the final focusing. To provide quantitative comparisons of these theoretical predictions with experiment, the Virtual National Laboratory for Heavy Ion Fusion has completed the construction and has begun experimentation with the neutralized-transport experiment. The experiment consists of three main sections, each with its own physics issues. The injector is designed to generate a very high-brightness, space-charge-dominated potassium beam, while still allowing variable perveance by a beam aperturing technique. The magnetic-focusing section, consisting of four pulsed quadrupoles, permits the study of magnet tuning, as well as the effects of phase-space dilution due to higher-order nonlinear fields. In the final section, the converging ion beam exiting the magnetic section is transported through a drift region with plasma sources for beam neutralization, and the final spot size is measured under various conditions of neutralization. In this paper, we discuss the design and characterization of the three sections in detail and present initial results from the experiment.

The consequences of beam conditioning in four example cases [VISA, a soft x-ray free-electron laser (FEL), LCLS, and a “Greenfield” FEL] are examined. It is shown that in emittance limited cases, proper conditioning reduces sensitivity to the transverse emittance and, furthermore, allows for stronger focusing in the undulator. Simulations show higher saturation power, with gain lengths reduced by a factor of 2 or more. The beam dynamics in a general conditioning system are studied, with “matching conditions” derived for achieving conditioning without growth in the effective emittance. Various conditioning lattices are considered, and expressions derived for the amount of conditioning provided in each case when the matching conditions are satisfied. These results show that there is no fundamental obstacle to producing beam conditioning, and that the problem can be reduced to one of proper lattice design. Nevertheless, beam conditioning will not be easy to implement in practice.

We analyze the stop band due to crab cavities for horizontal tunes that are either close to integers or close to half integers. The latter case is relevant for today’s electron/positron colliders. We compare this stop band to that created by dispersion in an accelerating cavity and show that a single typical crab cavity creates larger stop bands than a typical dispersion at an accelerating cavity. We furthermore analyze whether it is beneficial to place the crab cavity at a position where the dispersion and its slope vanish. We find that this choice is worth while if the horizontal tune is close to a half integer, but not if it is close to an integer. Furthermore we find that stop bands can be avoided when the horizontal tune is located at a favorable side of the integer or the half integer. While we are here concerned with the installation of a single crab cavity in a storage ring, we show that the stop bands can be weakened, although not eliminated, significantly when two crab cavities per ring are chosen suitably.

An 11.4% partial Siberian snake was used to successfully accelerate polarized protons through a strong intrinsic depolarizing spin resonance in the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS). No noticeable depolarization was observed. This opens up the possibility of using a 20% to 30% partial Siberian snake in the AGS or other medium energy proton synchrotrons to overcome all weak and strong depolarizing spin resonances.

Within the framework of the CERN program on electron cloud effects in accelerators, a coaxial multipacting test stand was built. In order to simulate bunched beam, the test stand is subjected to short rf pulses. The field strength in a traveling wave mode is sufficient to trigger multipacting in “as received” surfaces, but not in chambers treated to reduce the secondary emission yield. Thus a number of upgrades in the bench setup have been pursued, mainly in two directions. The first one is a general reduction in mismatching (i.e., electrical losses) amongst the different parts of the setup. Secondly, instead of dumping the pulsed power into a load, it is recirculated by means of a broadband working regime resonant ring. This ring required the design of a directional coupler with up to 1 kV dc isolation, very low transmission losses, and a four octave bandwidth. This paper reports on the steps required to build this traveling wave resonant ring (improvements on the chamber and implementation of the coupler) and includes an appendix on the main properties of the setup that relate to electron multipacting studies.

We have developed a statistical model for the flashover of a $45°$ vacuum-insulator interface (such as would be found in an accelerator) subject to a pulsed electric field. The model assumes that the initiation of a flashover plasma is a stochastic process, that the characteristic statistical component of the flashover delay time is much greater than the plasma formative time, and that the average rate at which flashovers occur is a power-law function of the instantaneous value of the electric field. Under these conditions, we find that the flashover probability is given by $1-\exp (-E_p^{\beta }{t}_{\mathrm{eff}}C/k^{\beta })$, where $E_p$ is the peak value in time of the spatially averaged electric field $E(t)$, $t_{\mathrm{eff}}\equiv \int [E(t)/E_p{]}^{\beta }dt$ is the effective pulse width, $C$ is the insulator circumference, $k\propto \exp (\lambda /d)$, and $\beta$ and $\lambda$ are constants. We define $E(t)$ as $V(t)/d$, where $V(t)$ is the voltage across the insulator and $d$ is the insulator thickness. Since the model assumes that flashovers occur at random azimuthal locations along the insulator, it does not apply to systems that have a significant defect, i.e., a location contaminated with debris or compromised by an imperfection at which flashovers repeatedly take place, and which prevents a random spatial distribution. The model is consistent with flashover measurements to within 7% for pulse widths between 0.5 ns and $10\mu \mathrm{s}$, and to within a factor of 2 between 0.5 ns and 90 s (a span of over 11 orders of magnitude). For these measurements, $E_p$ ranges from 64 to $651\mathrm{kV}/\mathrm{cm}$, $d$ from 0.50 to 4.32 cm, and $C$ from 4.96 to 95.74 cm. The model is significantly more accurate, and is valid over a wider range of parameters, than the J. C. Martin flashover relation that has been in use since 1971 [J. C. Martin on Pulsed Power, edited by T. H. Martin, A. H. Guenther, and M. Kristiansen (Plenum, New York, 1996)]. We have generalized the statistical model to estimate the total-flashover probability of an insulator stack (i.e., an assembly of insulator-electrode systems connected in series). The expression obtained is consistent with the measured flashover performance of a stack of five 5.72-cm-thick, 1003-cm-circumference insulators operated at 100 and $158\mathrm{kV}/\mathrm{cm}$. The expression predicts that the total-flashover probability is a strong function of the ratio $E_p/k$, and that under certain conditions, the performance improves as the capacitance between the stack grading rings is increased. In addition, the expression suggests that given a fixed stack height, there exists an optimum number of insulator rings that maximizes the voltage at which the stack can be operated. The results presented can be applied to any system (or any set of systems connected in series) subject to random failures, when the characteristic statistical delay time of a failure is much greater than its formative time.

Some high-energy experiments have suffered from bitter experience on synchrotron-radiation background. As a measure, we have developed a new calculation method of synchrotron radiation based on a real beam orbit, aiming at quantitative estimations of synchrotron-radiation backgrounds, and the construction of a possible alarm system for the background. An explanation and a demonstration of our method are given.

Characterization of beam energy spread in a space-charge dominated beam is very important to understanding the physics of intense beams. It is believed that coupling between the transverse and longitudinal directions via Coulomb collisions will cause an increase of the beam longitudinal energy spread. At the University of Maryland, experiments have been carried out to study the energy evolution in such intense beams with a high-resolution retarding field energy analyzer. The temporal beam energy profile along the beam pulse has been characterized at the distance of 25 cm from the anode of a gridded thermionic electron gun. The mean energy of the pulsed beams including the head and tail is reported here. The measured rms energy spread is in good agreement with the predictions of the intrabeam scattering theory. As an application of the beam energy measurement, the input impedance between the cathode and the grid due to beam loading can be calculated and the impedance number is found to be a constant in the operation region of the gun.

Recent experience with $X$-band accelerator structure development has shown the rf input coupler to be the region most prone to rf breakdown and degradation, effectively limiting the operating gradient. A major factor in this appears to be high magnetic fields at the sharp edges of the coupling irises. As a first response to this problem, couplers with rounded and thickened iris horns have been employed and successfully tested at high power. To further reduce fields for higher power flow, conceptually new coupler designs have been developed, in which power is coupled through the broad wall of the feed waveguide, rather than through terminating irises. A “mode-launcher” coupler, which launches the ${\mathrm{TM}}_{01}$ mode in circular waveguide before coupling through a matching cell into the main structure, has been tested with great success. With peak surface fields below those in the body of the structure, this coupler represented a breakthrough in the Next Linear Collider structure program. The design of this coupler and of variations which use beam line space more efficiently are described here. The latter include a coupler in which power passes directly through an iris in the broad wall of the rectangular waveguide into a matching cell, also successfully implemented, and a variation which makes the waveguide itself an accelerating cell. We also discuss in some detail a couple of techniques for matching such couplers to traveling-wave structures using a field solver. The first exploits the cell number independence of a traveling-wave match, and the second optimizes using the fields of an internally driven structure.

A formalism presented in a previous paper for the analysis of cumulative beam breakup with arbitrary time dependence of the beam current [J. R. Delayen, Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams 6, 084402 (2003)] is applied to the problem of beam breakup in the presence of random displacements of cavities and focusing elements. A closed-form solution is obtained and is applied to the behavior of a single bunch and to the steady-state and transient behavior of dc beams and beams composed of pointlike bunches.

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.

A formula is derived for the small-signal gain of a Smith-Purcell free-electron laser. The theory describes the electron beam as a moving plasma dielectric, and assumes that the electron beam interacts with an evanescent mode traveling along the surface of a periodic waveguide with a rectangular profile. The phase velocity of the evanescent wave is synchronous with the electron velocity, but the group velocity is actually negative. The electron beam amplifies the evanescent wave, which does not itself radiate. According to this picture, the radiation observed emanating from the grating is Smith-Purcell radiation enhanced by the bunching of the electrons due to the interaction with the evanescent mode. There will also be radiation from the part of the evanescent mode that is outcoupled from the ends of the grating. This radiation appears at a lower frequency than the Smith-Purcell radiation. The new results explain both the gain and the radiation observed in the experiments of Urata and Walsh, and the cube-root current dependence of the gain inferred by Bakhtyari, Walsh, and Brownell.

The acceleration efficiency of a laser driven linear accelerator is analyzed. The laser power, loss factor, and impedances determine the maximum charge that can be accelerated and the efficiency of that acceleration. The accelerator structure can be incorporated into a laser cavity. The equation for the resultant laser pulse is derived and analyzed. A specific example is presented, and the steady-state laser pulse shapes, acceleration efficiency, and average unloaded gradient are calculated.

The energy loss and gain of a beam in the nonlinear, “blowout” regime of the plasma wakefield accelerator, which features ultrahigh accelerating fields, linear transverse focusing forces, and nonlinear plasma motion, has been asserted, through previous observations in simulations, to scale linearly with beam charge. Additionally, from a recent analysis by Barov et al., it has been concluded that for an infinitesimally short beam, the energy loss is indeed predicted to scale linearly with beam charge for arbitrarily large beam charge. This scaling is predicted to hold despite the onset of a relativistic, nonlinear response by the plasma, when the number of beam particles occupying a cubic plasma skin depth exceeds that of plasma electrons within the same volume. This paper is intended to explore the deviations from linear energy loss using 2D particle-in-cell simulations that arise in the case of experimentally relevant finite length beams. The peak accelerating field in the plasma wave excited behind the finite-length beam is also examined, with the artifact of wave spiking adding to the apparent persistence of linear scaling of the peak field amplitude into the nonlinear regime. At large enough normalized charge, the linear scaling of both decelerating and accelerating fields collapses, with serious consequences for plasma wave excitation efficiency. Using the results of parametric particle-in-cell studies, the implications of these results for observing severe deviations from linear scaling in present and planned experiments are discussed.

Beam blowup due to a half-integer resonance was observed in the HIMAC synchrotron with a nondestructive two-dimensional beam-profile monitor. As the betatron tune approached a half-integer, the vertical beam size became larger by about 13%. The measured rms beam size is in good agreement with a space-charge-included numerical simulation.