Emittance Growth Study of an Electron Beam in a Double-Alpha Magnet Compressor Used in an Inverse Compton Scattering X-Ray Source

Abstract

An Inverse Compton Scattering (ICS) X-ray source is under development at the ELSA (Electrons Laser X-Sources and Applications) electron RF linac of CEA DAM (Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives, Direction des Applications Militaires). X-rays are emitted by the interaction of 30 MeV electron bunches with Nd:YAG laser pulses. The electron bunches duration is 30 ps rms before compression in two alpha magnets. In such a system, electron trajectories are curved with a short radius, resulting in a noticeable degradation of the beam emittance. In the specific case of strongly curved trajectories, the straight trajectory and beam shape assumptions used for space charge calculation in most simulation codes are questionable. Two different approaches to the simulation of electron beam dynamics within the alpha magnets are compared. A specific method to deal with changes from the reference particle frame to the laboratory reference frame, which does not imply any trajectory and beam shape assumptions, is proposed. Calculation results are presented. Along with an important emittance growth, they show that more physical effects can be taken into account in the latter simulation.