Using dielectric wall accelerator technology, we are developing a compact induction accelerator system primarily intended for pulsed radiography. The accelerator would provide a 2-kA beam with an energy of 8 MeV, for a 20-30 ns flat-top. The design goal is to generate a 2-mm diameter, 10-rad x-ray source. We have a physics design of the system from injector to the x-ray converter. We present the results of injector modeling and PIC simulations of beam transport. We also discuss the predicted spot size and the on-axis x-ray dose.

The very high beam currents in the PEP-II B-Factory have caused many expected and unexpected effects: Synchrotron light fans move the beam pipe and cause dispersion; higher order modes cause excessive heating, e-clouds around the positron beam blow up its beam size. Here we describe an effect where the measured dispersion of the beam in the Low Energy Ring (LER) is different at high and at low beam currents. The dispersion was iteratively lowered by making anti-symmetric orbit bumps in many sextupole duplets, checking each time with a dispersion measurement where a dispersive kick is generated. This can be done parasitically during collisions. It was a surprise when checking the low current characterization data that there is a change. Subsequent high and low current measurements confirmed the effect. One source was believed to be located far away from any synchrotron radiation in the middle of a straight (PR12), away from sextupoles and skew quadrupoles and created a dispersion wave of about 70 mm at high current while at low current it is negligible.

The injection of beam into the PEP-II B-Factory, especially into the High Energy Ring (HER) has some challenges. A high background level in the BaBar detector has for a while inhibited us from trickling charge into the HER similar to the Low Energy Ring (LER). Analyzing the injection system has revealed many issues which could be improved. The injection bump between two kickers was not closed, mainly because the phase advance wasn't exactly 180{sup o} and the two kicker strengths were not balanced. Additionally we found reflections which kick the stored beam after the main kick and cause the average luminosity to drop about 3% for a 10 Hz injection rate. The strength of the overall kick is nearly twice as high as the design, indicating a much bigger effective septum thickness. Compared with single beam the background is worse when the HER beam is colliding with the LER beam. This hints that the beam-beam force and the observed vertical blow-up in the HER pushes the beam and especially the injected beam further out to the edge of the dynamic aperture or beyond.

The number of bunches in the PEP-II B-Factory has increased over the years. The luminosity has followed roughly linearly that increase or even faster since we have also lowered the spot size at the interaction point. The recent steps from 939 bunches in June of 2003 to about 1320 in February 2004 (and 1585 in May) should have been followed by a similar rise in luminosity from 6.5 {center_dot} 10{sup 33} l/cm{sup 2} {center_dot} 1/s to 9.1 {center_dot} 10{sup 33} 1/cm{sup 2} {center_dot} 1/s (or even 11 {center_dot} 10{sup 33} 1/cm{sup 2} {center_dot} 1/s in May). This didn't happen so far and a peak luminosity of ''only'' 7.3 {center_dot} 10{sup 33} 1/cm{sup 2} {center_dot} 1/s (or 9.2 {center_dot} 10{sup 33} 1/cm{sup 2} {center_dot} 1/s in May) was achieved with less bunch currents. By filling the then partially filled by-3 pattern to a completely filled by-3 pattern (1133 bunches) we should get 7.9 {center_dot} 10{sup 33} 1/cm{sup 2} {center_dot} 1/s with scaled currents of 1400 mA (HER) on 1900 mA (LER). We were typically running about 1300 mA on 1900 mA with 15% more bunches in February (and 1550 mA on 2450 mA with 40% more bunches in May). The bunch …

The short SPEAR 3 startup time required precommissioned software for machine setup, beam measurements and data analysis. To accomplish this goal, we used Matlab with the Accelerator Toolbox (AT), the Channel Access Toolbox (MCA) and Middle Layer software to integrate code and streamline production. This paper outlines the software architecture, describes the Middle Layer component and provides examples from SPEAR 3 commissioning.

The successful commissioning of the new SPEAR3 light source at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) will be reviewed. Orbit control, beam-based alignment, and an orbit interlock were commissioned. Orbit motion was characterized as a function of frequency. The linear optics was corrected for ID focusing and coupling errors. The nonlinear optics were investigated with dynamic aperture measurements as a function of energy and tune.

The beam-beam performance of the PEP-II B-Factory has been studied by simultaneously measuring the instantaneous luminosity, the horizontal and vertical e{sup +} and e{sup -} beam sizes in the two rings, and the spatial extent of the luminous region as extracted from BaBar dilepton data. These quantities, as well as ring tunes, beam lifetimes and other collider parameters are recorded regularly as a function of the two beam currents, both parasitically during routine physics running and in a few dedicated accelerator physics experiments. They are used to quantify and improve the PEP-II beam-beam performance.

In recent years, a number of short wavelength FEL experiments have demonstrated key technologies and obtained good agreement between experiment and theory. The x-ray FEL at MIT[1] is one example of a design for a new generation linac-based light source. Such a new machine requires very high quality electron beams. Besides the usual requirements on beam quality such as emittance, energy spread, peak current, etc., there are new challenges emerging in the design studies, e.g., the precise arrival timing of electron beam at lower tens of femtoseconds level to ensure the laser seed overlap the desired sections of electron bunch in the multiple-stage HGHG process. In this paper we report the progress on design optimization towards high quality and low sensitivity beams.

Careful optics studies and stringent lattice control have been identified as two key components to increasing PEP-II luminosity. An accurate, trusted BPM system is required for both of these strategies. To validate the existing BPM system and to better understand some optical anomalies in the PEP-II rings, an aggressive program of beam-based alignment (BBA) has been initiated. Using a quad-shunt BBA procedure in which a quadrupole's field strength is varied over a range of beam positions, relative offsets are determined by the BPM readings at which quadrupole field changes no longer induce a closed orbit shift. This procedure was verified in the HER and is well underway in the LER IR. We have found several surprisingly large BPM offsets, one over one centimeter, as well as a number of locations where the current nominal orbit is several millimeters from the design. Tune versus quadrupole field data were taken during the BBA process in the LER IR, and the non-linear response in each case is compared to simulation to infer local beta functions.

At the Fast Neutron Research Facility (FNRF), Chiang Mai University (Thailand), the SURIYA project has been established aiming to produce femtosecond electron pulses utilizing a combination of an S-band thermionic rf gun and a magnetic bunch compressor ({alpha}-magnet). A specially designed rf-gun has been constructed to obtain optimum beam characteristics for the best bunch compression. Simulation results show that bunch lengths as short as about 50 fs rms can be expected at the experimental station. The electron bunch lengths will be determined using autocorrelation of coherent transition radiation (TR) through a Michelson interferometer. The paper discusses beam dynamics studies, design, fabrication and cold tests of the rf-gun as well as presents the project current status and forth-coming experiments.

In this study, we calculate the effects of Coherent Synchrotron Radiation (CSR) in the LCLS bunch compression section BC2[3] on the resulting FEL performance, considering a realistic, strongly non-gaussian longitudinal charge distribution. The longitudinal chirping required for the bunch compression process leads to a non-linear, non-monotonous {delta}(z) functional dependence (Fig. 1 shows the current distribution and the energy offset along the bunch). We model this functional dependence by matching it to a cubic polynomial {delta} {approx} c{sub 0} + c{sub 1}z + c{sub 2}z{sup 2} + c{sub 3}z{sup 3}. During compression, the charge distribution in the z-{delta} plane will ''fold over'', as shown in fig. 2. This leads to a cusp at each end of the current distribution I(z), as shown in figure 3. High |l'(z)| values will lead to high longitudinal CSR fields, with possible detrimental effects on the transverse projected and slice emittance as well as energy spread, possibly affecting FEL performance.

The PEP-II B-Factory is delivering peak luminosities of up to 9.2 {center_dot} 10{sup 33} 1/cm{sup 2} {center_dot} l/s. This is very impressive especially considering our poor understanding of the lattice, absolute orbit and beam position monitor system (BPM). A few simple MATLAB programs were written to get lattice information, like betatron functions in a coupled machine (four all together) and the two dispersions, from the current machine and compare it the design. Big orbit deviations in the Low Energy Ring (LER) could be explained not by bad BPMs (only 3), but by many strong correctors (one corrector to fix four BPMs on average). Additionally these programs helped to uncover a sign error in the third order correction of the BPM system. Further analysis of the current information of the BPMs (sum of all buttons) indicates that there might be still more problematic BPMs.

In regular top-up-and-coast operation, PEP-II average luminosity is about 70-75% of the peak luminosity due to detector ramp-down and ramp-up times plus the time it takes to top-up both beams. We recently commissioned a new operational mode where the Low Energy Ring is injected continuously without ramping down the detector. The benefits--increased luminosity lifetime and roughly half the number of top-ups per shift--were expected to give an increase in delivered luminosity of about 15% at the same peak luminosity; this was confirmed in test runs. In routine trickle operation, however, it appears that the increase in delivered luminosity is more than twice that due to an increase in availability credited to the more stable operating conditions during trickle operation. Further gains were made when continuous injection was extended to the high energy ring as well. In this paper we will present our operational experience as well as some of the diagnostics we use to monitor and maintain tuning of the machine in order to control injection background and protect the detector.

Klystrons capable of driving accelerator sections in the Next Linear Collider (NLC) have been developed at SLAC during the last decade. In addition to fourteen 50 MW solenoid-focused devices and a 50 MW Periodic Permanent Magnet focused (PPM) klystron, a 500 kV 75 MW PPM klystron was tested in 1999 to 80 MW with 3 {micro}s pulses, but very low duty. Subsequent 75 MW prototypes aimed for low-cost manufacture by employing reusable focusing structures external to the vacuum, similar to a solenoid electromagnet. During the PPM klystron development, several partners (CPI, EEV and Toshiba) have participated by constructing partial or complete PPM klystrons. After early failures during testing of the first two devices, SLAC has recently tested this design (XP3-3) to the full NLC specifications of 75 MW, 1.6 {micro}s pulse length, and 120 Hz. This 14.4 kW average power operation came with an efficiency of 50%. The XP3-3 average and peak output power, together with the focusing method, arguably makes it the most advanced high power klystron ever built anywhere in the world. Design considerations and test results for these latest prototypes will be presented.

The LCLS Photoinjector beamline is now in the Design and Engineering stage. The fabrication and installation of this beamline is scheduled for the summer 2006. The Photoinjector will deliver 10 ps long electron bunches of 1nC with a normalized transverse emittance of less than 1 mm.mrad for 80% of the slices constituting the core of the bunch at 135 MeV. The calculations done to finalize the specifications of the photoinjector beamline components are described. Modifications include a new exit energy, additional focusing between the two linac modules, the insertion of a ''laser heater'', and a new geometry for the coupling cells of the RF structures. We also discuss two interesting tunings, one for the nominal charge of 1nC but using a longer laser pulse and the second one for a lower charge of 0.2nC. Sensitivity to field errors and misalignment for those two new configurations is compared to that of the nominal tuning.

Those working with alternating-gradient (A-G) systems look for simple, accurate ways to analyze A-G performance for matched beams. The useful K-V equations are easily solved in the smooth approximation. This approximate solution becomes quite inaccurate for applications with large focusing fields and phase advances. Results of efforts to improve the accuracy have tended to be indirect or complex. Their generalizations presented previously gave better accuracy in a simple explicit format. However, the method used to derive their results (expansion in powers of a small parameter) was complex and hard to follow; also, reference 7 only gave low-order correction formulas. The present paper uses a straightforward iteration method and obtains equations of higher order than shown in their previous paper.

Within the scope of conceptual research and development (R&D) activities in support of the Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA) facility, high priority is given to the development of high-power fragmentation beam dumps. A pre-study was made of a static water-cooled Cu beam dump that can meet requirements for a 400 MeV/u uranium beam. The issue of beam sputtering was addressed and found to be insignificant. Preliminary radiation transport simulations show significant damage (in displacements per atom, DPA) in the vicinity of the Bragg peak of the uranium ions. Experimental data show that defects in Cu following neutron or high-energy particle irradiation tend to saturate at doses between 1 and 5 DPA, and this saturation in defect density also results in saturation of mechanical property degradation. However, effects of swift heavy ion irradiation and the production of gaseous and solid transmutant elements still need to be addressed. Initial calculations indicate that He concentrations on the order of 400 appm are produced in the beam dump after several weeks of continuous operation and He embrittlement may be a concern. Recommendations are made for further investigation of Cu irradiation effects for RIA-relevant conditions.

The beam distribution of particles in a storage ring can be distorted in the presence of nonlinear resonances. Computer simulation is used to study the equilibrium distribution of an electron beam in the presence of a single 4th order nonlinear resonance in a storage ring. Its result is compared with that obtained using an analytical approach by solving the Fokker-Planck equation to first order in the resonance strength. The effect of resonance on quantum lifetime of electron beam is also compared and investigated.

The PEP-II B Factory at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) requires an upgrade of the transverse feedback system electronics. The new electronics require 12-bit resolution and a minimum sampling rate of 238 Msps. A Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) is used to implement the feedback algorithm. The FPGA also contains an embedded PowerPC 405 (PPC-405) processor to run control system interface software for data retrieval, diagnostics, and system monitoring. The design of this system is based on the Xilinx(R) ML300 Development Platform, a circuit board set containing an FPGA with an embedded processor, a large memory bank, and other peripherals. This paper discusses the design of a digital feedback system based on an FPGA with an embedded processor. Discussion will include specifications, component selection, and integration with the ML300 design.

The LCLS Photoinjector produces a 100A, 10 ps long electron bunch which is later compressed down to 230 fs to produce the peak current required for generating SASE radiation. SASE saturation will be reached in the LCLS only if the emittance and uncorrelated energy spread remain respectively below 1.2 mm.mrad and 5.10{sup -4}. This high beam quality will not be met if the Longitudinal Space Charge (LSC) instability develops in the injector and gets amplified in the compressors. The LSC instability originates in the injector beamline, from an initial modulation on top of the photoelectron pulse leaving the cathode. Numerical computations, performed with Multiparticle Space Charge tracking codes, showing the evolution of the longitudinal phase space along the LCLS injector beamline, are discussed. Their results are compared with those deduced from theoretical models in different regimes of energy and acceleration and for different modulation wavelengths. This study justifies the necessity to insert a ''laser heater'' in the LCLS Photoinjector beamline.

The results of theoretical and numerical considerations of linear Compton scattering are used to evaluate characteristics of X-rays produced by collision between a low emittance electron beam and intensive laser light in an X-ray generator NESTOR of NSC KIPT. Two main generation modes have been under consideration at preliminary NESTOR design. There are the operation mode for medicine 33.4 keV X-rays production using 43 Mev electron beam and Nd:YAG laser beam and higher energy X-rays production mode providing X-rays with energy up to 900 keV with 225 MeV electron beam and Nd:YAG laser beam. It was supposed to use an optical cavity for laser beam accumulation of about 2.6 m long and an interaction angle of about 3{sup o} in both operation modes. A few more operation modes provide possibility to expand operation range of NESTOR. Using interaction angle 10{sup o} and 150{sup o} along with optical resonator of 42 cm long and the second mode of laser light it is possible to produce X-rays in energy range from a few keV till 1.5 MeV. The intensity and spectral brightness of the X-rays is expected to be {approx} 10{sup 13} phot/s and {approx}10{sup 13} phot/s/mm{sup 2}/mrad{sup 2}/0.1%BW respectively.

We have synthesized (110)-oriented epitaxial thin films of the bilayer (n=2) manganite, La{sub 1.2}Sr{sub 1.8}Mn{sub 2}O{sub 7}, with the metallic/ferromagnetic a-b planes lying perpendicular to the substrate surface and the c-axis aligned in the plane of the film. X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy confirm the alignment of the a-b planes along the [1{bar 1}0] substrate direction. The films consist primarily of the n=2 phase with a minor component of the n=1 (La,Sr){sub 2}MnO{sub 4} and n={infinity} (La,Sr)MnO{sub 3} phases. A resistivity maximum coincides with a ferromagnet/paramagnet transition at a reduced T{sub c}{approx}90K (vs. 120K for bulk), indicative of the effects of epitaxial strain. The films display similar anisotropic properties to their bulk counterpart with the magnetically easy direction confined to the a-b planes and 20-200 times lower resistivity for current flowing along the a-b planes compared to the c-axis.

A laser driven wakefield accelerator has been tuned to produce high energy electron bunches with low emittance and energy spread by extending the interaction length using a plasma channel. Wakefield accelerators support gradients thousands of times those achievable in RF accelerators, but short acceleration distance, limited by diffraction, has resulted in low energy beams with 100 percent electron energy spread. In the present experiments on the L'OASIS laser, the relativistically intense drive pulse was guided over 10 diffraction ranges by a plasma channel. At a drive pulse power of 9 TW, electrons were trapped from the plasma and beams of percent energy spread containing > 200 pC charge above 80 MeV and with normalized emittance estimated at< 2pi-mm-mrad were produced. Data and simulations (VORPAL code) show the high quality bunch was formed when beam loading turned off injection after initial trapping, and when the particles were extracted as they dephased from the wake. Up to 4TW was guided without trapping, potentially providing a platform for controlled injection. The plasma channel technique forms the basis of a new class of accelerators, with high gradients and high beam quality.

Stacked Blumlein Pulse Generators comprised of parallel-plate transmission lines are potentially a useful pulse-power architecture for high-gradient, compact, electron-beam accelerators and other applications. Such pulse generators require a low-inductance, fast (<5ns) switch per stage to erect the stack and produce the desired output pulse. We are developing a rail-gap switch tightly integrated with the stack for this application. We employ ultraviolet light (UV) to pre-ionize the switch, which facilitates prompt, low-jitter, and potentially multichannel operation. A novel aspect of our switch is that the source of the UV is a conventional Xenon flashlamp. This allows variation of the switch pressure and gas without affecting the flashlamp operation. We can operate our switch in either triggered or self-breaking mode. Here we present initial results of a two-stage, stacked Blumlein operating in self-break mode. We compare the switch performance to gas-switch scaling laws with respect to resistive-phase risetime and trigger delay as a function of gas density, gap-length, and gap-voltage.