• R.T. Dowd, A. Michalczyk, K. Zingre
  ASCo, Clayton, Victoria

RF cavities are routinely detuned slightly from resonance to maintain Robinson stability of the beam as beam loading increases. Detuning the cavities results in a reduction of the overall energy efficiency of the RF and can waste many MW hours of energy per year. It is therefore desirable to only detune as much as required by the beam loading to maintain stability. A new system for monitoring the load impedance of the Storage Ring RF cavities has been developed at the Australian Synchrotron. The system utilises the Analogue devices AD8302 chip to monitor the load impedance of the Cavities and allow for more efficient detuning of the system. An overview and commissioning results of this system will be presented.

• R.T. Dowd, M.J. Boland, G. LeBlanc, Y.E. Tan
  ASCo, Clayton, Victoria

Emittance coupling in the Australian Synchrotron storage ring is currently controlled using a total of 28 skew quadrupoles. The LOCO method was used to calculate the skew quadrupole settings, using measured vertical dispersion and transverse coupling. This information is used to create a calibrated model of the machine, which is then used to calculate the required skew quadrupole settings needed to minimise coupling. This method has thus far achieved encouraging results for achieving ultra low (<2pm) vertical emittance. In this study we seek to explore the validity of the LOCO model based on empirical measurements and possible improvements of this method.

• Y.E. Tan, D.R.T. Appadoo, M.J. Boland, R.T. Dowd
  ASCo, Clayton, Victoria

Generating short bunches for time resolved studies or the generation of THz radiation has been done at many other light sources and is of increasing interest in the user community. Light sources not designed with ps bunchs can usually tune the lattice to reduce ps bunchs without much difficulty, sometimes referred to as a Low Alpha mode. At the Australian light source a low alpha configuration has been investigated. The results looking into the 'shaping' of the momentum compaction factor, beam stability and current limitations will be presented.