High-Current Electron-Beam Transport in Linear Induction Accelerators

Abstract

In recent years a number of advanced linear induction accelerators (LIAs) have been developed which have the capability for accelerating very high electron beam currents, provided that satisfactory answers are obtained to a number of beam transport and stability issues. Examples of this new technology include the advanced technology accelerator (Prono, 1985), the RADLAC accelerators, (Miller, et al., 1985) and the LIU accelerators of the Soviet Union (Pavlovskii, et al., 1975). In this review we analyze several important beam stability issues pertaining to the propagation of very high current electron beams in and through the accelerating structures. In particular, we develop criteria for various equilibrium configurations, injector designs for producing the equilibria, general beam stability criteria, zero-order analyses of accelerating gap designs and considerations of various multiple-gap instabilities, including transverse beam break-up and image displacement. We then show how these analyses can be practically applied by illustrating the design of the beam transport line of the RADLAC-II accelerator. Finally, we briefly describe the new transport technique of ion channel guiding.KeywordsDrift TubeVirtual CathodeRadial Electric FieldRadial OscillationHollow BeamThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.