• W.X. Cheng, W.J. Corbett, A.S. Fisher
  SLAC, Menlo Park, California

A dual-axis, synchroscan streak camera was used to measure temporal bunch profiles in three storage rings at SLAC: the PEP-II low-energy and high-energy rings, and SPEAR3. At high currents, both PEP rings exhibit a transient shift in synchronous phase along the bunch train due to RF-cavity loading. Bunch length and profile asymmetry were measured along the train for a range of beam currents. To avoid the noise of a dual-axis sweep, we accumulated a single-axis synchroscan image over multiple turns while applying a 50-ns gate to the microchannel plate. To improve the extinction ratio, we synchronized this 2-kHz gate with an upstream mirror pivoting at 1 kHz to deflect light from other bunches off the axis. At SPEAR3 we compared the bunch length as a function of current for several lattices: achromatic, low-emittance and low momentum compaction. In the first two cases, resistive and reactive impedance components were extracted from the longitudinal bunch profiles. In the low-alpha configurations, we observed natural bunch lengths approaching the camera resolution, requiring special care to remove instrumental effects, and saw evidence of instability and periodic bursting.