Betatrons with Kiloampere Beams

Although the magnetic-induction method of acceleration used in the betatron is inherently capable of accelerating intense particle beams to high energy, many beam-instability questions arise when beams in the kilo-ampere range are considered. The intense electromagnetic fields produced by the beam, and by the image currents and charges induced in the surrounding walls, can produce very disruptive effects. Several unstable modes of collective oscillation are possible; the suppression of any one of them usually involves energy spread for "Landau damping" and careful design of the electrical character of the vacuum chamber. The various design criteria are often mutually incompatible. Space-charge detuning can be severe unless large beam apertures and high-energy injection are used. In order to have an acceptably low degree of space-charge detuning in the acceleration of a 10-kilo-ampere electron beam, for example, an injection energy on the order of 50 MeV seems necessary, in which case the forces due to nearby wall images can have a larger effect than the internal forces of the beam. A method of "image compensation" was invented for reducing the net image forces; it serves also to decrease the longitudinal beam impedance and thus helps alleviate the longitudinal instability as well. In order to avoid the ion-electron collective instability a vacuum in the range of 10-8 torr is required for an acceleration time of 1 millisecond. A multi-ring betatron system using the 50-MeV Advanced Test Accelerator at LLNL as an injector was conceptually designed.