The University of Maryland Electron Ring (UMER) enters a new regime of high-tune-shift rings

Beams with a high phase space density are useful for many modern applications such as free electron lasers, pulsed neutron sources, high-energy-density physics, and high-luminosity colliders. Production of such beams requires understanding the complex space charge dynamics at the low-energy end of the accelerator. The University of Maryland Electron Ring (UMER) has been designed and built with the purpose of investigating space charge effects using scaled low-energy electron experiments. We have recently circulated the highest- space-charge beam in a ring to date, achieving a breakthrough both in the number of turns and in the amount of current propagated. We have propagated a beam with an integer tune shift for over 100 turns, and other, even higher-current beams, for 5-50 turns albeit with some beam loss. One beam had a tune shift at injection of 5.0, which is several factors higher than anything propagated in the past. We report here as well on other interesting aspects of the UMER work.