Storm Mathisen

Machine protection systems in high power particle accelerators are crucial. They can detect, prevent, and respond to events which would otherwise cause damage and significant downtime to accelerator infrastructure. Current systems are often resource heavy and operationally expensive, reacting after an event has begun to cause damage; this leads to facilities only covering certain operational modes and setting lower limits on machine performance. Presented here is a new type of machine protection system based upon optical fibres, which would be complementary to existing systems, elevating existing performance. These fibres are laid along an accelerator beam line in lengths of ∼100 m, providing continuous coverage over this distance. When relativistic particles pass through these fibres, they generate Cherenkov radiation in the optical spectrum. This radiation propagates in both directions along the fibre and can be detected at both ends. A calibration based technique allows the location of the Cherenkov radiation source to be pinpointed to within 0.5 m with a resolution of 1 m. This measurement mechanism, from a single device, has multiple applications within an accelerator facility. These include beam loss location monitoring, RF breakdown prediction, and quench prevention. Detailed here are the application processes and results from measurements, which provide proof of concept for this device for both beam loss monitoring and RF breakdown detection. Furthermore, highlighted are the current challenges for future innovation.

The main obstacle to the practical implementation of the dielectric wakefield acceleration (DWA) concept is the development of the beam breakup instability due to transverse dipole wakefields generated when the beam propagates off axis in the accelerating structure. One of the methods to suppress this instability is to elliptically shape the beam and accelerate it in a planar structure. Here, we report a detailed experimental investigation of the transverse dynamics of elliptical beams in planar dielectric structure with parameters mimicking future DWA modules. Both dipole and quadrupole wakefields’ effects on beam stability and projected emittance were studied. This study has highlighted the importance of counteracting quadrupole wakefields in future DWA implementations.

The compact linear accelerator for research and applications (CLARA) is an ultrabright electron beam test facility being developed at STFC Daresbury Laboratory. The ultimate aim of CLARA is to test advanced free electron laser (FEL) schemes that can later be implemented on existing and future short-wavelength FELs. In addition, CLARA is a unique facility to provide a high-quality electron beam to test novel concepts and ideas in a wide range of disciplines and to function as a technology demonstrator for a future United Kingdom x-ray FEL facility. CLARA is being built in three phases; the first phase, or front end (FE), comprises an S-band rf photoinjector, a linac, and an S-bend merging with the existing versatile electron linear accelerator beam line; the second phase will complete the acceleration to full beam energy of 250 MeV and also incorporate a separate beam line for use of electrons at 250 MeV; and the third phase will include the FEL section. The CLARA FE was commissioned during 2018, and the facility was later made available for user experiments. Significant advancements have been made in developing high-level software and a simulation framework for start-to-end simulations. The high-level software has been successfully used for unmanned rf conditioning and for characterization of the electron beam. This paper describes the design of the CLARA FE, performance of technical systems, high-level software developments, preliminary results of measured beam parameters, and plans for improvements and upgrades.

The growing interest in wireless high-data-rate communications at millimeter waves for both terrestrial networks and satellite communications is stimulating novel solutions to overcome the strong atmospheric attenuation. In particular, the development of high-throughput satellite communication systems for Internet distribution is fundamental to complementing the terrestrial networks and to cover regions not connected to terrestrial backbones, such as at sea or remote areas. Ku-band and Ka-band satellite systems are presently available. Recently, the W-band (71-76 GHz and 81-86 GHz) has been allocated for multigigabit transmissions, providing 5-GHz bandwidth for both uplink and downlink. However, it has been estimated that for enabling high-throughput W-band satellite communication systems, transmission power higher than 50 W is needed. In this paper, a 71-76 GHz double-corrugated waveguide (DCW) traveling-wave tube (TWT) is designed as an amplifier for high-data-rate satellite downlink, with about 70-W output power. The dispersion characteristic of the designed DCW is experimentally validated by a cold test. The proposed TWT is also a test vehicle, scaled in frequency, for a future novel 220-GHz DCW TWT for terrestrial wireless networks.