Computational aspects of optics design and simulation: COSY INFINITY

Abstract

Abstract The new differential algebraic (DA) techniques allow very efficient treatment and understanding of nonlinear motion in optical systems as well as circular accelerators. To utilize these techniques in their most general way, a powerful software environment is essential. A language with structure elements similar to Pascal was developed. It has object oriented features to allow for a direct utilization of the elementary operations of the DA package. The compiler of the language is written in Fortran 77 to guarantee wide portability. The language was used to write a very general beam optics code, COSY INFINITY. At its lowest level, it allows the computation of the maps of standard beam line elements including fringe fields and system parameters to arbitrary order. The power of the DA approach coupled with an adequate language environment reveals itself in the very limited length of COSY INFINITY of only a few hundred lines. Grouping of elements as well as structures for optimization and study are readily available through the features of the language. Because of the openness of the approach, it offers a lot of power for more advanced purposes. For example, it is very easy to construct new particle optical elements. There are also many ways to efficiently manipulate and analyze the maps.