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abstract:
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We have recently added a dispersionless translating section to the UCLA Neptune linear accelerator beamline. This new section of beamline will serve as a venue for beam shaping and compression experiments using the 14MeV electron beam produced by the UCLA Neptune PWT linac and newly installed photoinjector. An examination of the first and second-order optics indicates that when certain nonlinear effects are minimized through the use of sextupole magnets, the longitudinal dispersion is dominated by a negative R56 which, for an appropriately chirped initial beam, can be used to create a ramped beam of a few picosecond duration that would be ideal for driving large amplitude wake fields in a plasma and producing high transformer ratios. The beamline is now in operation. Preliminary data indicate that the beamline optics are well-predicted by simulation and that sextupoles can be used successfully to eliminate nonlinear horizontal dispersion. Future experiments are planned for measuring beam compression (using CTR autocorrelation) and doing longitudinal phase space tomography (using a transverse deflecting cavity).
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