• C.M. Bhat
  Fermilab, Batavia
• F. Caspers, H. Damerau, S. Hancock, E. Mahner, F. Zimmermann
  CERN, Geneva

Funding: Fermi Research Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC02-07CH11359 with the U.S. Department of Energy and CARE-HHH

Motivated by the discussions on scenarios for LHC upgrades, beam studies on the stability of flat bunches in a double-harmonic RF system have been conducted in the CERN Proton Synchrotron (PS). Injecting nearly nominal LHC beam intensity per cycle, 18 bunches are accelerated on harmonic h=21 to 26 GeV with the 10 MHz RF system. On the flat-top, all bunches are then transformed to flat bunches by adiabatically adding RF voltage at h=42 from a 20 MHz cavity in anti-phase to the h=21 system. The voltage ratio V(h42)/V(h21) of about 0.5 was set according to simulations. For the next 140 ms, longitudinal profiles show stable bunches in the double harmonic RF bucket until extraction. Without the second harmonic component, coupled-bunch oscillations are observed. The flatness of the bunches along the batch is analyzed as a measure of the relative phase error between the RF systems due to beam loading. Measurements of electron cloud effects induced by the beam are also discussed. The results of beam dynamics simulations and their comparison with the measured data are presented.

• T. Sen, C.M. Bhat, J.-F. Ostiguy
  Fermilab, Batavia

We examine the stability of intense flat bunches in barrier buckets. We consider a class of stationary distributions and derive analytical expressions for the threshold intensity at which Landau damping is lost against rigid dipole oscillations in the presence of impedances and space charge forces. Particle simulations are used to follow the dynamics in a barrier bucket and compare with the analytic expressions. These studies are related to experimental observations in the Recycler ring at Fermilab.