QUASARs conduct novel beam emittance measurements at CLEAR
QUASARs Dr Joseph Wolfenden and Dr Debdeep Ghosal have recently completed a measurement programme at the CERN Linear Electron Accelerator for Research (CLEAR), with PhD student Catherine Swain supporting remotely. The experiments were to demonstrate two novel methods of measuring an important beam parameter called emittance; this is generally used as a measure of the beam quality and is important factor in many applications. The new methods under investigation focus on providing an emittance measurement on a bunch-by-bunch (or single-shot) basis, targeting future non-invasive operation.
The CLEAR beamline
This work was funded as part of the AWAKE-UK project, in contribution to the Advanced Wakefield Experiment (AWAKE). In this project a high energy proton bunch is used to generate wakefields within a plasma, like a boat upon a lake. These wakefields are then used to accelerate electron bunches to extremely high energies. Currently this process is unstable and requires an array of beam diagnostics to accurately monitor the process. Single-shot, non-invasive, emittance measurements are a critical piece of instrumentation for future runs on AWAKE, and the QUASAR group are leading the development of these tools.
The initial images from the measurements look very promising and full data analysis is underway.