We report on our investigations into density fluctuations in electron bunches. Noise and density fluctuations in relativistic electron bunches, accelerated in a linac, are of critical importance to various Coherent Electron Cooling (CEC) [1-5] concepts as well as to free-electron lasers (FELs). For CEC, the beam noise results in additional diffusion that counteracts cooling. In SASE FELs, a micro-wave instability starts from the initial noise in the beam and eventually leads to the beam microbunching yielding coherent radiation, and the initial noise in the FEL bandwidth plays a useful role. In seeded FELs, in contrast, such noise interferes with the seed signal, so that reducing noise at the initial seed wavelength would lower the seed laser power requirement [6-8]. Status of the project will be presented.

The warm front end of the PIP2IT accelerator, assem-bled and commissioned at Fermilab, consists of a 15 mA DC, 30 keV H- ion source, a 2 m long Low Energy Beam Transport (LEBT) line, and a 2.1 MeV, 162.5 MHz CW RFQ, followed by a 10 m long Medium Energy Beam Transport (MEBT) line. A part of the commissioning efforts involves operation with the average beam power emulating the operation of the proposed PIP-II accelera-tor, which will have a duty factor of 1.1% or above. The maximum achieved power is 5 kW (2.1 MeV x 5 mA x 25 ms x 20 Hz). This paper describes the difficulties encoun-tered and some of the solutions that were implemented.

The Warm Front End (WFE) of the Proton Improvement Plan II Injector Test at Fermilab has been constructed to its full length. It includes a 15-mA DC, 30-keV H- ion source, a 2 m-long Low Energy Beam Transport (LEBT) with a switching dipole magnet, a 2.1 MeV CW RFQ, followed by a Medium Energy Beam Transport (MEBT) with various diagnostics and a dump. This report presents the commissioning status, focusing on beam measurements in the MEBT. In particular, a beam with the parameters required for injection into the Booster (5 mA, 0.55 ms macro-pulse at 20 Hz) was transported through the WFE.

The PIP-II project is a program to upgrade the Fermilab accelerator complex. The PIP-II linac includes a 2.1 MeV Medium Energy Beam Transport (MEBT) section that incorporates a unique chopping system to perform arbitrary, bunch-by-bunch removal of 162.5 MHz structured beam. The MEBT chopping system will consist of two identical kickers working together and a beam absorber. One design of two having been proposed has been a 200 Ohm characteristic impedance traveling wave dual-helix kicker driven with custom designed high-speed switches. This paper reports on the first performance results of one prototype kicker built, installed and tested with beam at the PIP-II Injector Test (PIP2IT) facility. The helix deflector design details are discussed. The electrical performance of the high-speed switch driver operating at 500 V bias is presented. Tests performed were chopping beam at 81.25 MHz for microseconds as well as with a truly arbitrary pattern for 550 μs bursts having a 45 MHz average switching rate and repeating at 20 Hz.

Using recently available GaN FETs, a 600 Volt three-stage, multi-FET switch has been developed having 2 nanosecond rise time driving a 200 Ohm load with the potential of approaching 30 MHz average switching rates. Possible applications include driving particle beam choppers kicking bunch-by-bunch and beam deflectors where the rise time needs to be custom tailored. This paper reports on the engineering issues addressed, the design approach taken and some performance results of this switch.

The Proton Improvement Plan II (PIP-II) at Fermilab is a program of upgrades to the injection complex. At its core is the design and construction of a CW compatible, pulsed H- SRF linac. To validate the concept of the front-end of such machine, a test accelerator known as PIP-II Injector Test (PIP2IT) is under construction. It includes a 10 mA DC, 30 keV H- ion source, a 2 m-long Low Energy Beam Transport (LEBT), a 2.1 MeV CWRFQ, followed by a Medium Energy Beam Transport (MEBT) that feeds the first of 2 cryomodules increasing the beam energy to about 25 MeV, and a High Energy Beam Transport section (HEBT) that takes the beam to a dump. The ion source, LEBT, RFQ, and initial version of the MEBT have been built, installed, and commissioned. This report presents the overall status of the warm front end.

High intensity proton particle accelerators that supports several simultaneous physics experiments requires sharing the beam. A bunch by bunch beam chopper system located after the Radio Frequency Quadrupole (RFQ) is required in this case to structure the beam in the proper bunch format required by the several experiments. The unused beam will need to be kicked out of the beam path and is disposed in a beam dumb. In this paper, we report on the RF modeling results of a proposed helical kicker. Two beam kickers constitutes the proposed chopper. The beam sequence is formed by kicking in or out the beam bunches from the streamline. The chopper was developed for Project X Injection Experiment (PXIE).

A CW-compatible, pulsed H- superconducting linac is envisaged as a possible path for upgrading Fermilab's injection complex. To validate the concept of the front- end of such a machine, a test accelerator (a.k.a. PXIE) is under construction. The warm part of this accelerator comprises a 10 mA DC, 30 keV H- ion source, a 2m-long LEBT, a 2.1 MeV CW RFQ, and a 10-m long MEBT that is capable of creating a large variety of bunch structures. The paper will report commissioning results of a partially assembled LEBT, status of RFQ manufacturing, and describe development of the MEBT, in particular, of elements of its chopping system.

A capability to provide a large variety of bunch patterns is crucial for the concept of the Project X serving MW-range beam to several experiments simultaneously. This capability will be realized by the Medium Energy Beam Transport's (MEBT) chopping system that will divert 80% of all bunches of the initially 5mA, 2.1 MeV CW 162.5 MHz beam to an absorber according to a pre-programmed bunch-by-bunch selection. Being considered one of the most challenging components, the chopping system will be tested at the Project X Injector Experiment (PXIE) facility that will be built at Fermilab as a prototype of the Project X front end. The bunch deflection will be made by two identical sets of travelling-wave kickers working in sync. Currently, two versions of the kickers are being investigated: a helical 200 Ohm structure with a switching-type 500 V driver and a planar 50 Ohm structure with a linear 250 V amplifier. This paper will describe the chopping system scheme and functional specifications for the kickers, present results of electromagnetic measurements of the models, discuss possible driver schemes, and show a conceptual mechanical design.

The proposed Project X machine at Fermilab must deliver a widely varying bunch pattern to provide beam to several experiments quasi-simultaneously. HBeam is delivered to the 2.1 MeV Medium Energy Beam Transport (MEBT) section at 162.5 MHz continuous wave (CW) by a radio frequency quadrupole magnet (RFQ). Unnecessary beam bunches will be selectively chopped out in the MEBT by two identical choppers on a bunch-by-bunch basis and stopped by an absorber. The Project X Injector Experiment (PXIE) will be the test bed to demonstrate a chopper’s ability to form an arbitrary bunch pattern. Presently two kicker system versions are under development. One proposed version is a 50 Ω structure driven by a ±250 V linear amplifier. The second proposed version is a 200 Ω helical, microstrip line structure driven by a 500 V bipolar switch. This paper describes the development status of the 200 Ω version and includes the design concept, comparison of 3D modelling work with prototype measurements, 200 Ω hardware description and progress with the driver.

The Project X Injector Experiment (PXIE), a test bed for the Project X front end, will be completed at Fermilab at FY12-16. One of the challenging goals of PXIE is demonstration of the capability to form a 1 mA H- beam with an arbitrary selected bunch pattern from the initially 5 mA 162.5 MHz CW train. The bunch selection will be made in the Medium Energy Beam Transport (MEBT) at 2.1 MeV by diverting undesired bunches to an absorber. This paper presents the MEBT scheme and describes development of its elements, including the kickers and absorber.

Antiprotons in Fermilab's Recycler ring are cooled by a 4.3 MeV, 0.1 - 0.5 A DC electron beam (as well as by a stochastic cooling system). The unique combination of the relativistic energy (γ = 9.49), an Ampere - range DC beam, and a relatively weak focusing makes the cooling efficiency particularly sensitive to ion neutralization. A capability to clear ions was recently implemented by way of interrupting the electron beam for 1-30 with a repetition rate of up to 40 Hz. The cooling properties of the electron beam were analyzed with drag rate measurements and showed that accumulated ions significantly affect the beam optics. For a beam current of 0.3 A, the longitudinal cooling rate was increased by factor of 2 when ions were removed.

Experimental measurements of beam halo diffusion dynamics with collimator scans are reviewed. The concept of halo control with a hollow electron beam collimator, its demonstration at the Tevatron, and its possible applications at the LHC are discussed.

The two Tevatron Electron Lenses (TEL1 and TEL2) are installed in Tevatron in 2001 and 2006 respectively. TEL1 is operated as the vital parts of the Tevatron for abort gap beam clearing, while TEL2 is functioning as the backup as well as the test device for beam-beam compensation, space charge compensator and soft beam collimator. Both of them are working exceptionally reliable after a few initial kinks being worked out. Their operations in Tevatron are summarized in this report.

Recent experimental studies at the Fermilab Tevatron collider have shown that magnetically confined hollow electron beams can act as a new kind of collimator for high-intensity beams in storage rings. In a hollow electron beam collimator, electrons enclose the circulating beam. Their electric charge kicks halo particles transversely. If their distribution is axially symmetric, the beam core is unaffected. This device is complementary to conventional two-stage collimation systems: the electron beam can be placed arbitrarily close to the circulating beam; and particle removal is smooth, so that the device is a diffusion enhancer rather than a hard aperture limitation. The concept was tested in the Tevatron collider using a hollow electron gun installed in one of the existing electron lenses. We describe some of the technical aspects of hollow-beam scraping and the results of recent measurements.

This paper reports on a 6 kV modulator built and installed at Fermilab to drive the electron gun anode for the Tevatron Electron Lens (TEL). The TEL was built with the intention of shifting the individual (anti)proton bunch tunes to even out the tune spread among all 36 bunches with the desire of improving Tevatron integrated luminosity. This modulator is essentially a 6 kV arbitrary waveform generator that enables the TEL to define the electron beam intensity on a bunch-by-bunch basis. A voltage waveform is constructed having a 7 μs duration that corresponds to the tune shift requirements of a 12-bunch (anti)proton beam pulse train. This waveform is played out for any one or all three bunch trains in the Tevatron. The programmed waveform voltages transition to different levels at time intervals corresponding to the 395 ns bunch spacing. Thus, complex voltage waveforms can be played out at a sustained rate of 143 kHz over the full 6 kV output range. This paper describes the novel design of the inductive adder topology employing five transformers. It describes the design aspects that minimize switching losses for this multi-kilovolt, high repetition rate and high duty factor application.

A powerful electron beam (4.3 MeV, 0.1 A DC) generated by an electrostatic accelerator has been used at Fermilab for three years to cool antiprotons in the Recycler ring. For electron cooling to be effective, the electron energy should not deviate from its optimum value by more than 500V. The main tool for studying the energy stability is the electron beam position in a high-dispersion area. The energy ripple (frequencies above 0.2 Hz) was found to be less than 150 eV rms; the main cause of the ripple is the fluctuations of the chain current. In addition, the energy can drift to up to several keV that is traced to two main sources. One of them is a drift of the charging current, and another is a temperature dependence of generating voltmeter readings. The paper describes the efforts to reach the required level of stability as well as the setup, diagnostics, results of measurements, and operational experience.

A modulator has been built to drive the gun anode of the Tevatron Electron Lenses (TEL) at Fermi lab. High voltage applied to the gun defines electron beam current in order for the TEL to perform beam-beam compensation in the Tevatron on each of the 36 (anti)proton bunches. Every bunch requires its own defined current, and the value of current for each bunch is different with each Tevatron "store". These requirements demand the modulator deliver a complex output voltage waveform with a high duty factor and high repetition rate exceeding 5 kV. The modulator described here utilizes a novel circuit topology employing 5 pulse transformers whose secondaries are connected in series to produce complex voltage waveforms played out repeatedly having peak voltages of 6 kV with average periodic rates up to 423 kHz and short bursts at 2.5 MHz. This paper describes the design approach taken to leverage the virtues of transformers for high rep-rates and duty factors while dealing with the adverse effects of parasitics to achieve speed. Design details and performance results are presented.

The Fermilab Recycler ring employs an electron cooler to store and cool 8.9-GeV antiprotons. The cooler is based on a 4.3-MV, 0.1-A, DC electrostatic accelerator for which current losses have to remain low ({approx}10{sup -5}) in order to operate reliably. The Machine Protection System (MPS) has been designed to interrupt the beam in a matter of 1-2 {micro}s when losses higher than a safe limit are detected, either in the accelerator itself or in the beam lines. This paper highlights the various diagnostics, electronics and logic that the MPS relies upon to successfully ensure that no damage be sustained to the cooler or the Recycler ring.