We report on the stable and continuous operation of a kilohertz laser-plasma accelerator. Electron bunches with 2.6 pC charge and 2.5 MeV peak energy were generated via injection and trapping in a downward plasma density ramp. This density transition was produced in a specially designed asymmetrically shocked gas jet. The reproducibility of the electron source was also assessed over a period of a week and found to be satisfactory with similar values of the beam charge and energy. Particle in cell simulations confirm the role of the shock and the density transition in the electron injection mechanism. These results show that the reproducibility and stability of the laser-plasma accelerator are greatly enhanced on the long-term scale when using a robust scheme for density gradient injection.

In a storage ring, turn-to-turn fluctuations in the intensity of spontaneous synchrotron radiation occur due to two mechanisms. The first mechanism is the quantum uncertainty in the number of emitted photons. The second mechanism is the turn-to-turn variations in the relative positions of classical pointlike electrons in the bunch. We present a unified description of both effects in the framework of quantum optics. We derive an equation for the fluctuations for an arbitrary degree of coherence, which generalizes previously reported results for temporally incoherent radiation. We compare the predictions of our calculation with a previous experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where the latter mechanism was dominant and propose a new dedicated experiment in the Integrable Optics Test Accelerator (IOTA) at Fermilab, where the two mechanisms may have comparable contributions to the fluctuations. Finally, our calculation shows that the magnitude of the fluctuations is rather sensitive to the dimensions and the shape of the electron bunch, thereby indicating possible applications in beam instrumentation. In particular, the small vertical size of the flat beams in IOTA may be estimated via these fluctuations, whereas measurement by a conventional synchrotron radiation monitor is difficult due to the diffraction limit.

The production of a low emittance muon beam is interesting for muon collider projects. In such context we study the production of positive and negative muon beams at 22 GeV, from $e^{+}$ beam-vs-fixed target collisions, with a very small transverse and longitudinal emittance of $25\pi \mathrm{nm}\mathrm{rad}$ and $3\times 1\pi \mathrm{mm}\mathrm{GeV}$, respectively. In order to cope with the small conversion efficiency of positrons into muon pairs and the divergence of the beams, we connect thin targets by a quadrupole-only transport line common to three beams (${\mu }^{+}$, ${\mu }^{-}$, and $e^{+}$) at two different energies ($\mu$ at 22 GeV and $e^{+}$ at 44 GeV), where the line is specially designed to match the muon beam phase space over $\pm 5\%$ energy spread and to mitigate the effect of multiple scattering with the targets on all beams. The transport line allows us to use a larger fraction of target material, increasing the muon population by a factor of 10 per positron bunch and splitting the power deposition over 20 to 40 targets, while keeping the muon beam emittance equal or similar to one from a single thin target of 1% of a radiation length. It might be possible to integrate this line into an accumulator ring in order to increase the muon bunch population over hundreds of positron bunches.

We present a topology for linear accelerators (linacs) in which the power is distributed to the cavities through a waveguide with periodic apertures that guarantees the correct phases and amplitudes along the structure length. Unlike conventional traveling and standing-wave linacs, the presented topology allows the cavity shapes to be designed without the constraints applied to the coupling between cells to transfer power from one cell to the next. Therefore, the topology permits more degrees of freedom for the optimization of individual cavity shapes in comparison with conventional linacs. The cavity shapes can be optimized for power consumption and efficiency, and/or the manipulation of the surface fields for high gradient operation. This topology also provides a possibility for low-temperature manufacturing techniques that prevent the annealing of the material during typical brazing processes; hence, the material could retain its original properties such as hardness. We present a design and an experimental demonstration of this linac.

The beam impedance of a ceramic break with titanium nitride (TiN) coating consists of three electric components in parallel: resistive wall term caused by TiN, radiation term, and capacitive term made by the ceramic itself. The entire wall current continues to run in the thin TiN even when the skin depth is much larger than the chamber thickness, except for the extremely thin TiN satisfying the condition that the radiation loss from the ceramic break becomes lower than the energy loss due to the dc current on the thin TiN. This characteristic is useful in developing a wall current monitor with an improved frequency response. This study demonstrates the feature of the “ceramic break” monitor up to a few GHz from the theoretical and measurement points of view.

Electron cloud is a critical phenomenon in particle accelerators operating with high intensity and positively charged beams, as it is responsible for beam instabilities, vacuum degradation, and heat load on cryogenic sections. Electron clouds provoke a conditioning of the beam pipe that is reflected on the reduction of its secondary electron yield (SEY). However, such a benefit is partially lost when vacuum sectors are vented for maintenance of accelerators; this phenomenon is called deconditioning. Samples removed from accelerators are also vented before surface analysis. Deconditioning amplifies the electron cloud at the resuming of beam operation and, on the other hand, hinders the understanding of the electron multipacting mechanism from surface analysis data. In this paper, copper deconditioning was studied for samples stored in a desiccator over months. Immediately after air exposure, an increase of the SEY is observed. This increase is driven by carbon recontamination and copper hydroxide growth on the conditioned surface as observed by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. After deconditioning, the differences of SEY present on the tested samples partially vanish, in particular, for surfaces conditioned to a maximum SEY below 1.45, limiting the level of accessible information when analyzing components extracted from accelerators. However, for a maximum SEY above 1.45, the differences remain visible for at least 8 weeks of storage. Among different storage conditions, vacuum efficiently stops the SEY increase over time. Besides, the memory effect of the conditioning is preserved over at least 4 months when closing the vacuum system on itself after venting with a clean and dry gas.

In this paper, we derive the longitudinal and transverse resistive wall impedance for a beam traveling in a round pipe with $v<c$. We argue that from the general formulas for the impedance obtained from the solution of the Maxwell equations one has to subtract the space charge component. After such subtraction, we find that the classical expressions for the impedance derived in the ultrarelativistic limit are also applicable for long bunches even when they are nonrelativistic—in contrast to the conclusion of Zimmermann and Oide [Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 7, 044201 (2004)]. We also calculate the resistive wall Green-function wake for $v<c$ at small distances and show that the jump at the origin in the longitudinal wake and in the derivative of the transverse wake are smeared out and the wake propagates in front of the source charge.

This paper presents a method that uses a gap scan of the phase shifter to optimize the intensity of a free-electron laser (FEL) by matching its phase with that of the electron beam. Phase shifters are essential instruments, especially for a long undulator line, which is segmented by drift sections. The phase-matched (in-phase) and the 180° offset (out-of-phase) conditions are investigated using linear theory, FEL simulations, and experiments to understand how the phase shifter affects FEL amplification. We show that the FEL intensity is dominantly reduced by phase mismatch in the saturation region, where the microbunched electron beam is sufficiently developed, and that the difference of FEL intensity between the in-phase and out-of-phase conditions is an effect of evolution of the bunching factor. At the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory x-ray Free-Electron Laser (PAL-XFEL), the gap scan of the phase shifter at 9.7 keV increased FEL intensity by 4 times compared to the calculated gap of the phase shifter. This intensity increase was obtained dominantly in the saturation region.

The energy spread of the electron beam is a critical parameter in x-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) and needs to be optimized for best performance. The uncorrelated energy spread of the electrons can be a few keV or less in XFEL injectors, thus very challenging to measure. The standard method to characterize the electron beam energy spread, consisting in streaking the beam with a transverse deflector and measuring the time-resolved beam size of the electrons in a dispersive location for a single electron beam energy, has a typical resolution of several keV. To overcome this limitation we introduce a novel method to measure the beam size at a dispersive location for different beam energies so that it is possible to disentangle the beam size contributions related to the energy spread, the intrinsic beam size and the monitor resolution. As a consequence, the energy spread can be characterized with a much higher precision and resolution than in the standard approach. We also suggest to perform measurements for different deflection amplitudes so that the energy spread induced by the transverse deflector can be subtracted properly. The scheme does not require any additional hardware and thus can be readily applied in any standard XFEL facility. Numerical simulations and experimental results at SwissFEL confirm the validity of our method. Our calculations show that the approach can be used to significantly overcome the resolution of the standard approach and measure energy spreads well below 1 keV. As an example we present energy spreads of few keV measured at the SwissFEL injector.

Laser and beam driven wakefields promise orders of magnitude increases in electric field gradients for particle accelerators for future applications. Key areas to explore include the emittance properties of the generated beams and overcoming the dephasing limit in the plasma. In this paper, the first in-depth study of the self-injection mechanism into wakefield structures from nonhomogeneous cluster plasmas is provided using high-resolution two dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. The clusters which are typical structures caused by ejection of gases from a high-pressure gas jet have a diameter much smaller than the laser wavelength. Conclusive evidence is provided for the underlying mechanism that leads to particle trapping, comparing uniform and cluster plasma cases. The accelerated electron beam properties are found to be tunable by changing the cluster parameters. The mechanism explains enhanced beam charge paired with large transverse momentum and energy which has implications for the betatron x-ray flux. Finally, the impact of clusters on the high-power laser propagation behavior is discussed.

A novel approach for positron injection and acceleration in the laser driven plasma wakefield is proposed. One ring-shaped beam and one coaxially propagating Gaussian beam drive wakefields in a preformed plasma volume filled with both electrons and positrons. The laser’s ponderomotive force as well as the charge separation force in the front bucket of the first bubble are utilized to provide the transverse momenta of injected positrons and those positrons can be trapped by the focusing field and then accelerated by the wakefield. Theoretical analysis of the process is presented and verified by particle-in-cell simulations. The simulations show that relatively high-charge, quasimonoenergetic positron beams can be obtained.

The determination of dynamic aperture in storage rings and colliders is a numerically intensive procedure. When realistic space-charge forces come into consideration, the numerical load becomes even heavier. Furthermore, dynamic aperture estimation using chaos indicators like frequency map analysis (FMA) raises reliability issues when the dynamical system has a time-dependent perturbation like the space-charge force. In this article, we apply a rapidly converging chaos indicator called reversibility error method (REM) to study the space-charge contribution to the dynamic aperture of the integrable optics test accelerator (IOTA) storage ring at a small value of the space charge tune shift. The strength of REM is addressed through examples, including a particle-core model of halo formation. We also develop a toy model of the IOTA lattice to further reduce the computing time required to estimate the dynamic aperture, and we compare this model with a realistic space-charge simulation for verification.

A novel high-gradient accelerating structure with low phase velocity, $v/c=0.38$, has been designed, manufactured and high-power tested. The structure was designed and built using the methodology and technology developed for CLIC $100\mathrm{MV}/\mathrm{m}$ high-gradient accelerating structures, which have speed of light phase velocity, but adapts them to a structure for nonrelativistic particles. The parameters of the structure were optimized for the compact proton therapy linac project, and specifically to 76 MeV energy protons, but the type of structure opens more generally the possibility of compact low phase velocity linacs. The structure operates in S-band, is backward traveling wave (BTW) with a phase advance of 150 degrees and has an active length of 19 cm. The main objective for designing and testing this structure was to demonstrate that low velocity particles, in particular protons, can be accelerated with high gradients. In addition, the performance of this structure compared to other type of structures provides insights into the factors that limit high gradient operation. The structure was conditioned successfully to high gradient using the same protocol as for CLIC X-band structures. However, after the high power test, data analysis realized that the structure had been installed backwards, that is, the input power had been fed into what is nominally the output end of the structure. This resulted in higher peak fields at the power feed end and a steeply decreasing field profile along the structure, rather than the intended near constant field and gradient profile. A local accelerating gradient of $81\mathrm{MV}/\mathrm{m}$ near the input end was achieved at a pulse length of $1.2\mu \mathrm{s}$ and with a breakdown rate (BDR) of $7.2\times {10}^{-7}1/\mathrm{pulse}/\mathrm{m}$. The reverse configuration was accidental but the operating with this field condition gave very important insights into high-gradient behaviour and a comprehensive analysis has been carried out. A particular attention was paid to the characterization of the distribution of BD positions along the structure and within a cell.

We present a linearized method to study transverse instabilities due to electron clouds. It is based on an accurate and compact characterization of the cloud dipolar and quadrupolar forces, that can be easily obtained from quick single-pass numerical simulations. The long-term stability properties of the bunch are then predicted by solving the linearized Vlasov equation, taking into account the dipolar forces introduced by the e-cloud along the bunch as well as the betatron tune modulation with the longitudinal coordinate due to the e-cloud quadrupolar forces. The method is benchmarked against macroparticle simulations based on the same characterization of the e-cloud and the results are compared against conventional “brute-force” simulations based on the Particle-In-Cell method. The effect of transverse nonlinearities due to the e-cloud, which are neglected by the linearized method, is also analyzed.

The Advanced Photon Source plans to upgrade to a multibend achromat (MBA) lattice that will dramatically decrease the electron beam emittance, thereby enhancing the x-ray brightness by two to three orders of magnitude. Electron beam focusing in the MBA requires small-aperture vacuum components that must also have a small impedance so as to minimize rf-heating and collective instabilities. As part of this effort, this paper focuses on coupling impedance measurements and analysis of certain critical Advanced Photon Source Upgrade vacuum components. Impedance measurements of accelerator components have traditionally been done with the coaxial wire method, which is based on the fact that the Transverse Electro-Magnetic (TEM) mode of the coaxial cable can mimic the Coulomb field of a particle beam; however this measurement technique has various limitations. This paper describes our approach to measure the coupling impedance using a Goubau line (G-line), which is essentially a single wire transmission line designed to propagate Sommerfeld-like surface waves whose fundamental Transverse Magnetic (TM) mode mimics the Coulomb field of a relativistic particle beam. We describe in detail the measurement procedure that we have developed for the G-line, including the measurement setup and proper definition of a reference, measurement procedure and advantages, and our experience regarding how to reduce systematic experimental error that we learned over the course of the measurements. Starting with our initial suite of measurements and simulations designed to benchmark and validate the novel G-line based measurement technique, we present the measured results for several Advanced Photon Source Upgrade vacuum components, including those of two rf-gasket designs and the beam position monitor-bellows assembly.

Multiobjective genetic algorithms (MOGAs) have proven to be powerful in solving multiobjective problems in the accelerator field. Nevertheless, for explorative problems that have many variables and local optima, the performance of MOGAs is not always satisfactory, especially when a small population size is used due to practical limitations, e.g., limited computing resources. To deal with this challenge, in this paper an enhanced MOGA, neural network-based MOGA (NBMOGA), is proposed. In this method, the data produced with the standard MOGA are used to train a neural network. The neural network is fast to produce a large pool of objective function estimates, with sufficiently high accuracy. A subset of the most competitive estimates is selected to form a population (matching MOGA population size), which is then evaluated with the MOGA evaluator. By taking three classic multiobjective problems as examples, we demonstrate that the proposed method promises a faster convergence and a higher degree of diversity than that available with the standard MOGA and other three optimization methods that have been applied in the accelerator field, i.e., the multiobjective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO), the combination of MOPSO and MOGA, and the clustering enhanced MOGA. And then this method is applied to a time-consuming optimization problem, the dynamic aperture and Touschek lifetime optimization of the high energy photon source. It turns out that, within the same optimization time, a better set of solutions in the objective space can be obtained with the NBMOGA than using other methods. The Touschek lifetime can be improved by about 10% compared with using the standard MOGA, with approximately the same dynamic aperture area. Besides, a higher degree of diversity among solutions is observed with the NBMOGA than using other tested methods.

For the design of high-performance particle accelerators and vacuum systems for high-energy colliders, the choice of materials and of their surface treatment is an essential prerequisite. Physical and optical properties of such materials and their coatings are input parameters for programs to simulate their performance and to validate machine design. Materials behavior after exposure to synchrotron radiation (SR), produced by the circulating particles, need to be studied because of its detrimental consequences, such as photo induced desorption, heat load, vacuum and beam induced instabilities. Reflectivity, its angular distribution and photo yield, i.e., the number of photoelectrons produced per incident photon, are essential ingredients to simulation codes. Such parameters must be studied not only on materials as they are in accelerators, but also in conditions as close as possible to the operative ones. In this work, we present results of such an experimental campaign, carried out at the Optics Beamline of BESSY-II. This experimental setup, designed to investigate quasiperfect x-ray-optical elements by “at-wavelength” metrology (from 35 eV to 1850 eV), is also an ideal tool to perform reflectivity and photo yield studies of vacuum chamber materials. As will be discussed, different roughness and various nano-, micro- or macro- modifications of a Cu-surface significantly influence the parameters under study. Energy- and angle-integrated values for the total reflectivity and photo yield are derived. Such integrated values are representative for material behavior under “white-light” irradiation for the various accelerators discussed here.

Two-dimensional electromagnetic (EM) particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations of a radial magnetically-insulated-transmission-line are presented and compared to the model of E. M. Waisman, M. P. Desjarlais, and M. E. Cuneo [Phys. Rev. Accel. Beams 22, 030402 (2019) in the “high-enhancement” (WDC-HE) limit. The simulations use quasi-equilibrium current and voltage values based on the Sandia National Laboratories $Z$ accelerator, with prescribed injection of an electron sheath that gives electron density profiles qualitatively similar to those used in the WDC-HE model. We find that the WDC-HE model accurately predicts the quasiequilibrium ion current losses in the EM PIC simulations for a wide range of current and voltage values. For the case of two ion species where one is magnetically insulated by the ambient magnetic field and the other is not, the charge of the lighter insulated species in the anode-cathode gap can modify the electric field profile, reducing the ion current density enhancement for the heavier ion species. On the other hand, for multiple ion species, when the lighter ions are not magnetically insulated and are a significant fraction of the anode plasma, they dominate the current loss, producing loss currents which are a significant fraction of the lighter ion WDC values. The observation of this effect in the present work is new to the field and may significantly impact the analysis of ion current losses in the $Z$ machine inner MITL and convolute.

The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) x-ray free-electron laser is driven by the third kilometer of the 3-km SLAC linac, which accelerates electrons in normal-conducting copper cavities pulsed at 120 Hz. The first kilometer is being replaced by LCLS-II, a superconducting (SC) electron linac driven by continuous rf at 1.3 GHz and with a normal-conducting photocathode gun using continuous rf at a subharmonic, 186 MHz. Its 4-GeV, 120-kW beam has a 1-MHz maximum rate, with an upgrade to 8 GeV in planning. The beam from either linac can be switched pulse by pulse to either of two new undulators, to generate hard and soft x rays. Control of beam loss is critical for machine and personnel safety. Previous SLAC protection systems have depended on ionization chambers, including both local devices at expected loss sites and long gas-dielectric coaxial cables providing distributed coverage. These devices are unsuited to the SC-linac beam, because their ion collection time, over 1 ms, may allow the space charge of accumulated ions to null the electric field inside the detector, blinding it to an increase in loss. Instead, both the local and the distributed detectors have been replaced with faster devices. The full 4 km will be spanned by multiple radiation-hard optical fibers in lengths of up to 200 m, each coupled to a photomultiplier tube, to capture Cherenkov light from loss showers. These are supplemented by single-crystal diamond detectors at expected loss sites. Signals are integrated with a 500-ms time constant; the beam is stopped within $\mathrm{200}\mu \mathrm{s}$ if a threshold is exceeded. We report on our extensive tests of the detectors and the new signal processing.