M. Ibison

ALICE tomography section: measurements and analysis

The ALICE tomography section at Daresbury is a diagnostic setup in the injection line of EMMA, the worlds first non-scaling FFAG accelerator. We present our measurements and analysis of the transverse emittance, Twiss parameters and phase space distribution of the electron beam that is injected into EMMA. The measurements are carried out at 12 MeV, for bunch charges from 20 to 80 pC. Quadrupole scans and tomography are used. The results show that space charge effect does not change the beam emittance significantly over the length of the tomography section. Starting from projections of the beam images, the quadrupole scan technique can be applied to give the emittance and Twiss parameters. The same projections can be processed using tomography to give the phase space distribution. A careful treatment of the background noise is required to produce consistent emittances between quadrupole scans at different locations. Extending this in a natural way to tomography, we are also able to remove most of the the streaking artefacts from reconstructions obtained using the Filtered Back Projection technique.

Beam tomography research at Daresbury Laboratory

Beam tomography research at Daresbury Laboratory has focussed on the development of normalised phase space techniques—starting with the idea of sampling tomographic projections at equal phase advances. This idea has influenced the design and operation of the tomography sections at the Photo Injector Test Facility at Zeuthen (PITZ) and at the Accelerator and Lasers in Combined Experiments (ALICE) at Daresbury. We have studied the feasibility of using normalised phase space to measure the effect of space charge. Quadrupole scan measurements are carried out at two different parts of a beamline. Reconstructions at the same location give results that are clearly rotated with respect to each other in normalised phase space. We are able to show that a significant part of this rotation can be attributed to the effect of space charge. We show how the normalised phase space technique can be used to increase the reliability of the Maximum Entropy Technique (MENT). While MENT is known for its ability to work with just a few projections, the accuracy of its reconstructions has seldom been questioned. We show that for typical phase space distributions, MENT could produce results that look quite different from the original. We demonstrate that a normalised phase space technique could give results that are closer to the actual distribution. We also present simpler ways of deriving the phase space tomography formalism and the Maximum Entropy Technique.

Energy efficiency studies for dual-grating dielectric laser-driven accelerators

Abstract Dielectric laser-driven accelerators (DLAs) can provide high accelerating gradients in the GV/m range due to their having higher breakdown thresholds than metals, which opens the way for the miniaturization of the next generation of particle accelerator facilities. Two kinds of scheme, the addition of a Bragg reflector and the use of pulse-front-tilted (PFT) laser illumination, have been studied separately to improve the energy efficiency for dual-grating DLAs. The Bragg reflector enhances the accelerating gradient of the structure, while the PFT increases the effective interaction length. In this paper, we investigate numerically the advantages of using the two schemes in conjunction. Our calculations show that, for a 100-period structure with a period of 2 μ m, such a design effectively increases the energy gain by more than 100 % when compared to employing the Bragg reflector with a normal laser, and by about 50 % when using standard structures with a PFT laser. A total energy gain of as much as 2.6 MeV can be obtained for a PFT laser beam when illuminating a 2000-period dual-grating structure with a Bragg reflector.

Progress in medical diffraction enhanced imaging at the UK Synchrotron Radiation Source

Diffraction Enhanced Imaging (DEI) is an x-ray phase contrast technique, which is showing great promise for a number of medical imaging problems. For a source it relies on a highly collimated flux of monochromatic x-rays, which is currently only available at synchrotron radiation facilities. Phase shifts occurring as the wave passes through the object are made visible using Bragg diffraction from a post-sample analyser optic. In early 2004 the DEI system on the bending-magnet beam line 7.6 of the Daresbury SRS was used for the first time to image a number of small medical specimens. This paper will report on the performance of the system and the results of these initial studies. A new DEI instrument is currently in the design phase. This facility will be integrated on wiggler station 9.4 on the SRS allowing access to shorter x-ray wavelengths and greater flux. A progress report on the design features and implementation of this system will be given.