A state of the art current-septum dipole magnet

Abstract

The acceleration process of charged particle beams often requires the use of few acceleration stages to provide the beam with the desired energy. The extraction of the beam from one acceleration stage and the injection to the next, both require a special type of magnet which comes under the name septum magnet. Such a magnet generates a strong field in one region and a very low field in another region with the two regions separated by a very thin material (septum). The septum thickness of such a magnet should be as thin as possible to reduce the strength of other devices, like kickers, which are involved in the extraction or injection processes. A thin septum is also advantageous during the slow beam extraction process to reduce the beam losses at the septum. One of the methods which in theory can generate very large differences in field strength in adjacent field regions separated by a thin septum, is the use of two thin parallel current sheets of infinite dimensions. In practice we use other devices that can approximate such an abrupt change of the magnetic field within the septum thickness. In this paper we describe such a device, the DC current septum, we present results from the study of its electromagnetic properties, and we discuss a method to minimize the magnetic field in the region which requires a very small magnetic field. We also provide some results from the experimental measurements of the magnetic field generated by the “D6” current septum magnet which is installed in the experimental beam line of the NASA’s Space Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) facility (Tsoupas et al., 2007; Brown et al., 2010) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). This septum magnet is part of the beam’s extraction system from the AGS-Booster into the NSRL beam line for material and biological studies.