Beam Dynamics Studies for a Laser Acceleration Experiment

The NLC Test Accelerator (NLCTA) at SLAC was built to address various beam dynamics issues for the Next Linear Collider. An S-Band RF gun is being installed together with a large-angle extraction line at 60 MeV followed by a matching section, buncher and final focus for the laser acceleration experiment, E163. The laser-electron interaction area is followed by a broad range, high resolution spectrometer (HES) for electron bunch analysis. Another spectrometer at 6 MeV will be used for analysis of bunch charges up to 1 nC. Emittance compensating solenoids and the low energy spectrometer (LES) will be used to tune for best operating point and match to the linac. Optical symmetries in the design of the 25.5° extraction line provide 1: 1 phase space transfer without use of sextupoles for a large, 6D phase space volume and range of input conditions. Design techniques, tolerances, tuning sensitivities and orthogonal knobs are discussed.