RF heating and temperature oscillations due to a small gap in a PEP-II vacuum chamber

Wake fields excited in a small gap of a vacuum chamber by ampere beams can have enough amplitude to heat the chamber. The electric component of these fields can be above the arcing limit. Usually flange connections in a vacuum chamber contain a vacuum gasket and an inner RF gasket. If a small gap occurs between the RF gasket and flange surface, wake fields can heat the flanges. The flanges are usually made of stainless steel, which efficiently absorbs RF power. Some flanges consist of two parts (like a vacuum valve flange) and are mechanically connected but have poor thermal contact. A temperature rise can lengthen the inner part of the flange and make firmer the thermal contact to the outer part of the flange. The heat will then flow to the outer part of the flange, which is air and water-cooled. This cooling lowers the flange temperature and the thermal contact becomes poor again. This "quasi" periodic mechanism can explain the nature of temperature oscillations observed at several locations in PEP-II, the SLAC B-factory.