Positron Ring Research Articles

Bunch lifetime analysis based on the injection interval at SuperKEKB

We study the bunch lifetime dependence on the bunch position at the SuperKEKB main ring. The bunch lifetime ratio is evaluated from the injection interval. The lifetime imbalance is observed between the forward and backward of the bunch train at the positron ring. It becomes larger when the beam current becomes larger. The luminosity dependence on the RF-bucket spacing can be explained with the lifetime dependency which we determined in this analysis. The result indicates the existence of the unknown phenomenon which varies the Touschek lifetime with the RF-bucket spacing in the electron ring.

Field Quality Improvement of Septum Magnets for SuperKEKB Injection System

The SuperKEKB accelerator is a electron-positron collider consisting of the 7 GeV electron ring (high energy ring or HER) and the 4 GeV positron ring (low energy ring or LER). The commissioning of the SuperKEKB accelerator is underway, aiming to supply a great number of interaction events of electrons and positrons to the Belle II detector which is used for discovering the new physics beyond the standard model. The important milestone is to obtain integrated luminosity of 15 ab–1 in the next decade, so that the luminosity should exceed 2 × 1035 cm–2s–1 in several years. To achieve the goal, both rings have to be filled with high current beam of a few amperes, where the high injection efficiency is vitally important because lifetime is expected to be very short. One of the key components of the injection system is the septum magnet. It has been found that a transverse fringe field near the septum plate has sizable multipole components. A tracking simulation shows such fringe fields generate a vertical non-Gaussian tail, which could cause a beam background as well as a bad injection efficiency. Though quadrupole component in the multipoles could be, in principle, cancelled by adjusting the quadrupole magnets in the upstream of the beam line, it turned out to be difficult in actual operation. Even the quadrupole component was perfectly cancelled, components higher than quadrupole would be still harmful, since it generates a beam halo in the ring after injection, which increases the beam backgrounds to the Belle II detector. This paper describes about improvement of the field quality of the septum magnet.

Longitudinal parameters measurement at BEPC II storage rings

A new upgrade to BEPC II has been deployed to improve the luminosity and maximum energy. After the upgrade, the maximum beam energy will reach to 2.8 GeV, and the optimized luminosity at 2.35 GeV will be tripled through squeezing the bunch length and the vertical beta function at the interaction point β y *. Therefore, one more RF cavity will be added to each ring to increase the RF voltage to 3.3 MV. In order to study the feasibility of this upgrade and the longitudinal beam characteristics after the upgrade, some beam-based experiments were carried out at the electron and positron rings of BEPC II. Bunch length and its variation with RF gap voltage are measured, shows that it can be squeezed by approximately 30% at 3.3 MV compared to the normal 1.65 MV operation voltage. Bunch synchronous phases at different RF voltages are also obtained by fitting the variation of bunch centroid with RF voltage at low current. The longitudinal broadband coupling impedance is measured with streak camera, real part impedance is obtained from synchronous phase shift with current, and the imaginary part from bunch lengthening with current. Energy loss per turn at 2.474 GeV is 363.2 ± 14.5 keV by measuring synchrotron tune varies with RF voltages.

Suppression of electron cloud using copper thermal spray coating in SuperKEKB

The electron cloud effect (ECE) has posed serious challenges in recent high-intensity proton and positron rings. An aluminum beam pipe coated with copper thermal spray film (T.S. coating), which had a low secondary electron yield (SEY), was developed to suppress electron clouds in accelerators. After 72 h conditioning, the lowest δmax (the maximum SEY within scanning) reached ∼0.7. In addition, to check the applicability of T.S. coating in accelerators, its outgassing rate and surface resistance were measured as a reference. Finally, an aluminum beam pipe with a T.S. coating was produced and installed in the positron ring of SuperKEKB to measure the electron density. The results show that the electron density in the finished beam pipe was comparable with that of the TiN-coated beam pipe; however, the relatively high surface resistance of T.S. coating must be considered when applied to accelerators.

Mitigation of electron cloud effects in the FCC-ee collider

Electron clouds forming inside the beam vacuum chamber due to photoemission and secondary emission may limit the accelerator performance. Specifically, the electron clouds can blow up the vertical emittance of a positron beam, through a head-tail-type single-bunch instability, if the central electron density exceeds a certain threshold value, that can be estimated analytically. Using the codes PyECLOUD and VSim, we carried out detailed simulations of the electron-cloud build up for the main arcs and the damping ring of the FCC-ee collider, in order to identify the effective photoemission rate and secondary emission yield required for achieving and maintaining the design emittance. To this end, we present the simulated electron density at the centre of the beam pipe for various bunch spacings, secondary emission yields, and photoemission parameters, in the damping ring and in the arcs of the collider positron ring. To gain further insight into the underlying dynamics, the obtained spatial and energy distributions of the cloud electrons are illustrated as a function of time. In addition, we compare results obtained for two different secondary emission models (“Furman–Pivi” and “ECLOUD”), thereby indicating the uncertainty inherent in this type of study, without any prototype vacuum chambers yet available. We also point out a few situations where the two secondary-emission models yield similar density values. Finally, based on our simulation results for two different design variants, we conclude that the new parameter baseline of the FCC-ee will facilitate electron-cloud mitigation.

First beam loss measurements in the SuperKEKB positron ring using the fast luminosity monitor diamond sensors

SuperKEKB is a very high luminosity ${e}^{+}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ collider consisting of a low energy ring (LER) of positrons of 4 GeV and a high energy ring (HER) of electrons of 7 GeV. The high luminosity will be achieved thanks to the nanobeam scheme, where very strongly focused beams (${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{y}=60\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{nm}$) will collide at a large crossing angle of 83 mrad. To maintain high luminosity operation, fast luminosity monitoring is essential in the presence of dynamic instabilities, for feedback and optimization. Fast luminosity monitors consisting of a single crystalline diamond sensor (LAL), a Cherenkov and scintillator detector (KEK) were placed in both rings downstream of the IP (interaction point) to measure the signal from the radiative Bhabha process at zero photon scattering angle ($\ensuremath{\sigma}\ensuremath{\approx}200\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{mbarn}$). During single beam commissioning of SuperKEKB, the fast luminosity monitors were used as beam loss monitors to measure the single beam losses (beam-gas bremsstrahlung, Touschek scattering, Coulomb scattering). In this paper, a detailed description of the experimental setup, the data acquisition scheme, the data analysis and the comparison with the simulation for the diamond sensors, will be reported.

Mitigating the electron cloud effect in the SuperKEKB positron ring

SuperKEKB is an electron-positron collider with asymmetric energies located at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) in Tsukuba, Japan. After more than five years of upgrading work on KEKB, phase-1 commissioning commenced in February 2016 and ended in June of the same year. Following a 20-month shutdown for the installation of a particle detector, BELLE II, phase-2 commissioning commenced in March 2018 and ended in July of the same year. This paper describes one major issue faced by SuperKEKB: the electron cloud effect (ECE) in the positron ring, which was observed during phase-1 commissioning. In the high-beam-current region, electron clouds, i.e., the source of the ECE, existed in the beam pipes at drift spaces of the ring, which had antechambers and a titanium nitride (TiN) film coating as countermeasures against the ECE. Permanent magnets and solenoids used to generate magnetic fields in the beam direction were attached to the beam pipes as additional countermeasures before the next commissioning phase commenced. Consequently, during phase-2 commissioning, experiments showed that the threshold of the current linear density for exciting the ECE increased by a factor of at least 2 compared to that during phase-1 commissioning. While the countermeasures were strengthened, the effectiveness of the antechambers and TiN film coating of the real beam pipe was reevaluated. Through various simulations and dedicated experiments during phase-2 commissioning, the antechambers were found to be less effective than anticipated with regard to reducing the number of photoelectrons in the beam channel. In contrast, the TiN film coating had a low secondary electron yield, as expected.

SuperKEKB main ring vacuum system status until the end of Phase-2 commissioning

SuperKEKB is an electron–positron collider with asymmetric energies at KEK aiming at a high luminosity of 8.0 × 1035 cm–2 s–1. The main ring (MR) consists of two rings: a 4 GeV positron ring (low-energy ring, LER) and a 7 GeV electron ring (high-energy ring, HER). During the Phase-1 commissioning of the MR from February to June 2016 and the Phase-2 commissioning from March to July 2018, the vacuum system worked well overall. By the end of Phase-2, the total beam doses (integrated beam currents) were 1113 and 1002 Ah, and the maximum beam currents were approximately 1010 and 870 mA for the LER and HER, respectively. The increase in pressure per unit beam current decreased steadily. The photodesorption coefficients reached approximately 1 × 10−6 and 7 × 10−8 molecules photon−1 with photon doses of 5.88 × 1024 and 9.27 × 1024 photons m−1 for the LER and HER, respectively. The beam lifetime was limited by the Touschek effect in both rings. Various new vacuum components, including those installed after the Phase-1 commissioning, such as the beam pipes for the Belle II particle detector, beam collimators, and so on, have been functioning well so far. The electron cloud effect was observed in the LER during Phase-1, but it was suppressed by additional countermeasures applied before Phase-2. Regarding the pressure bursts accompanied with beam losses, which were frequently observed during Phase-1, the frequency of the pressure bursts drastically decreased during Phase-2, but the longer operation time with lower beam currents during Phase-2 than Phase-1 should be taken into account. Several new problems, such as the heating of stainless-steel beam pipes due to the synchrotron radiation emitted from the final focusing quadrupole magnets at the collision point, were found during Phase-2, and countermeasures are being prepared for the Phase-3 commissioning, which will commence in March 2019. SuperKEKB has been accumulating various data and information that will facilitate the design and operation of the vacuum systems in future high-current accelerators.

Proposal for Using DAΦNE as Pulse Stretcher for the Linac Positron Beam

The PADME experiment [1] aims at searching for the dark photon (A’) in the e+e− → Aγ′ process in a positron-on-target experiment, exploiting the positron beam of the DAΦNE Linac at the INFN Frascati National Laboratory (Italy). The Linac can provide a number of positrons in excess of 1010 in a 200 ns long pulse but, in order to keep the pile-up probability in the calorimeter at an acceptable level, the number of positrons for PADME has to be below 105/pulse, in particular by using the attenuating target in the BTF beam-line. The experiment is then essentially limited by the low duty factor (10−5 = 200 ns/20 ms). In this paper, an alternative proposal to use the DAΦNE positron ring as a Linac pulse stretcher, by injecting each pulse into the ring and extracting it by a slow resonant extraction using the m/3 resonance, is presented. This would allow for distributing the positrons of a single Linac pulse over a much longer time interval (0.2-0.5 ms), increasing the duty factor up to ∼1%. The required modifications of the DAΦNE positron transfer line and ring are described. A dedicated lattice for the positron ring has been designed and tracking of the positrons injected in the ring has been performed in order to optimize the extraction parameters and to give a preliminary estimate of the extracted beam characteristics.

Monitoring single event upsets in SRAM-based FPGAs at the SuperKEKB interaction point

In February 2016, the SuperKEKB positron-electron high-luminosity collider of the KEK laboratory (Tsukuba, Japan) started being commissioned. A dedicated commissioning detector, named BEAST2, has been used to characterize beam backgrounds before the Belle2 detector was rolled into the beams and to provide tuning parameters for Monte Carlo simulations. BEAST2 consists of a fiberglass support structure and several sub-detectors mounted onto it, including time projection chambers (TPCs) and He-3 tubes. In this work, we present direct measurements of radiation-induced single event upsets in a SRAM-based FPGA device installed in BEAST2 at a distance of ∼ 1 m from the beam interaction point. Our goal was to provide experimental results of the expected radiation-induced configuration upset rate and power consumption variation at Belle2 and at other experiments operating in similar radiation environments. Beam currents for both electron and positron rings spanned a range between 50 and 500 mA, therefore providing data about the FPGA operation in different radiation conditions. Even if the machine has not been providing collisions yet, as the beams were not focused to the interaction point, our results show a rate of 0.15 upsets/day averaged over the whole commissioning time frame. We had neither evidence of total dose effects on the FPGA power consumption nor of permanent damage to the device.

Beam scrubbing of beam pipes during the first commissioning of SuperKEKB

The first (Phase-1) commissioning of SuperKEKB—an electron-positron collider with asymmetric energies located at KEK, in Tsukuba, Japan—started in February 2016, after more than five years of upgrading work on KEKB, and successfully ended in June of the same year. This paper describes one major task of Phase-1 commissioning: beam scrubbing the surface of the beam pipes, to prepare them for a sufficiently long beam lifetime and low background noise in the next commissioning, when a new particle detector will be installed. The pressure rises per unit beam current (dP/dI [Pa A−1]) were continuously monitored, and the coefficient of photon-stimulated desorption (PSD), η [molecules photon−1], was evaluated in the arc sections. The value of η decreased steadily with the beam dose, as expected. For arc sections in the positron ring, where most of the beam pipes were newly fabricated, the decrease in η against the photon dose (D) was similar to that previously reported; that is: η∝D−0.5∼0.8. At high storage beam currents, the evolution of η was affected by gas desorption resulting from the multipacting of electrons—that is, the electron cloud effect (ECE), which is a phenomenon particular to high-intensity positron rings. For the arc sections in the electron ring, η also decreased smoothly with the photon dose D, approximately as ∝ D−0.8. Given that most of these beam pipes were reused from KEKB, the value of η was much lower than that of the positron ring, and also lower than that of the electron ring of KEKB from the early stages of D. This implies that the surface of the reused beam pipes remembered the conditions in the KEKB, which is a known memory effect. The results obtained for η are compared with those obtained in various other accelerators.

First commissioning of the SuperKEKB vacuum system

The first (Phase-1) commissioning of SuperKEKB, an asymmetric-energy electron-positron collider at KEK, began in February 2016, after more than five years of upgradation work on KEKB and successfully ended in June 2016. A major task of the Phase-1 commissioning was the vacuum scrubbing of new beam pipes in anticipation of a sufficiently long beam lifetime and low background noise in the next commissioning, prior to which a new particle detector will be installed. The pressure rise per unit beam current decreased steadily with increasing beam dose, as expected. Another important task was to check the stabilities of various new vacuum components at high beam currents of approximately 1 A. The temperature increases of the bellows chambers, gate valves, connection flanges, and so on were less than several degrees at 1 A, and no serious problems were found. The effectiveness of the antechambers and TiN coating in suppressing the electron-cloud effect (ECE) in the positron ring was also confirmed. However, the ECE in the Al-alloy bellows chambers was observed where TiN had not been coated. The use of permanent magnets to create an axial magnetic field of approximately 100 G successfully suppressed this effect. Pressure bursts accompanying beam losses were also frequently observed in the positron ring. This phenomenon is still under investigation, but it is likely caused by collisions between the circulating beams and dust particles, especially in the dipole magnet beam pipes.

Fast rise time IR detectors for lepton colliders

Diagnostics is a fundamental issue for accelerators whose demands are continuously increasing. In particular bunch-by-bunch diagnostics is a key challenge for the latest generation of lepton colliders and storage rings. The Frascati Φ-factory, DAΦNE, colliding at 1.02 GeV in the centre of mass, hosts in the main rings few synchrotron radiation beamlines and two of them collect the synchrotron radiation infrared emission: SINBAD from the electron ring and 3+L from the positron ring. At DAΦNE each bucket is 2.7 ns long and particles are gathered in bunches emitting pulsed IR radiation, whose intensity in the long wavelength regime is directly proportional to the accumulated particles. Compact uncooled photoconductive HgCdTe detectors have been tested in both beamlines using dedicated optical layouts. Actually, the fast rise time of HgCdTe semiconductors give us the chance to test bunch-by-bunch devices for both longitudinal and transverse diagnostics. For the longitudinal case, single pixel detectors have been used, while for the transverse diagnostics, multi-pixel array detectors, with special custom design, are under test. This contribution will briefly describe the status of the research on fast IR detectors at DAΦNE, the results obtained and possible foreseen developments.

Sextupole Magnets With Variable Tilting Angle for SuperKEKB

SuperKEKB, which is an electron-positron collider with a design peak luminosity of 8 × 10 35 /(cm 2 s), is under construction. The luminosity is 40 times higher than the world record set by its predecessor, KEKB B-factory. The design of SuperKEKB is based on the “nanobeam scheme,” which is a low-emittance lattice. To achieve the low-emittance beam, the chromaticity of X-Y coupling at the interaction point (IP) should be controlled. Skew sextupole magnets are found to be effective in reducing the beam size at the IP during the KEKB operation. A novel idea of tilting normal sextupole magnets to control the ratio of the skew to the normal field component has been proposed for the positron ring at SuperKEKB. This paper presents the design and the fabrication of the tilting sextupole magnet system.

Status of SuperKEKB construction

SuperKEKB is a major upgrade of the asymmetric B-factory collider, KEKB, to provide 40 times higher luminosity than that achieved at KEKB. The design of SuperKEKB adopts the nano-beam scheme for the collision of two beams, which was originally proposed for the Italian SuperB project. The nano-beam scheme is realized with low-emittance optics, a very small β-function, and a large crossing angle at the collision point. For the low-emittance design, a substantial part of the positron ring (LER) was reconstructed. All dipole magnets in the LER were replaced with longer ones. The beam pipes in the LER were redesigned to mitigate the electron cloud problem. Around the interaction point, about 300 m of both rings were completely redesigned for the new collision scheme. The commissioning of SuperKEKB is divided into three phases. Phase 1 is used for vacuum scrubbing of new beam pipes without the Belle-II detector and the final focus magnets. The final focus magnets and Belle-II are installed in Phase 2. However, the central vertex detector (VXD) of Belle-II is not installed. Phase 2 is devoted to background studies and collision tuning. After the installation of VXD, Phase 3 starts for the new luminosity frontier. The construction of SuperKEKB for Phase 1 is nearing completion. The preparation of hardware for Phase 2 and Phase 3 is in steady progress. From various aspects, the nano-beam scheme SuperKEKB is a challenging accelerator. The tolerances for the hardware to realize nano-scale beam sizes and to keep the collision are very tight. The optics design is still being optimized to maximize the dynamic aperture. It is hard to predict how the commissioning will proceed.

Results and problems in the construction phase of the SuperKEKB vacuum system

The SuperKEKB, the upgrade of the KEKB, is an electron–positron collider with asymmetric energies, that is, 7.0 GeV electrons and 4.0 GeV positrons, designed for a luminosity of 8 × 1035 cm−2 s−1. As a key item of the upgrade project, a new vacuum system for the SuperKEKB has been in construction since 2010. Over 1000 beam pipes, vacuum pumps, bellows chambers, and other various vacuum components had almost been fabricated in 2014. All the new beam pipes were baked as a general rule before being installed in the KEKB tunnel. A thin TiN film with a low secondary-electron yield was coated on the inside of the beam pipes for the positron ring as a countermeasure against the electron cloud effect. The performance of the new built-in nonevaporable getter (NEG) pumps and the step-less connection flanges met the expectation. Although several problems such as damage to the bellows chambers due to a large earthquake, cracking of the welding lines of the aluminum beam pipes, and a relatively high air-leak rate at the connection flanges occurred during the construction work, approximately 99% of the beam pipes were successfully installed by the end of October 2015. The activation of the NEG pumps in the tunnel started at the beginning of 2015 and has also been completed in approximately 97% of the ring. The installed beam pipes and the bellows chambers in the tunnel were aligned to their specified positions as the final step of the installation work. The vacuum system was ready in 2015 with the aim of starting the first commissioning in 2016. The various experiences during the construction phase reported here will be a useful reference for the design and construction of other accelerators in the future.

Construction status of the SuperKEKB vacuum system

The SuperKEKB, the upgrade of the KEKB, is an electron-positron collider with asymmetric energies, that is, 4.0 GeV positrons and 7.0 GeV electrons, aiming an unprecedentedly high luminosity of 8 × 1035 cm−2s−1. The construction of the new vacuum system for SuperKEKB has been in progress since 2010, as a key item of the upgrade project. The major challenges in the vacuum system are the reduction of beam impedances of various components and the suppression of the electron cloud effects (ECE) in the positron ring, as well as the realization of ultra-high vacuum, under the high beam current. New beam pipes and bellows chambers basically have an antechamber structure. The main pump is a strip-type NEG installed in an antechamber of beam pipes. Various countermeasures against the electron cloud effect, such as coating of TiN film, grooved surfaces and so on, are prepared for the positron ring. Most of new components have been already ordered and delivered. All the new beam pipes are baked at 150 °C for one day before the installation into the tunnel. Approximately 73% of the beam pipes have been installed. The evacuation of beam pipes in the tunnel has also begun. The vacuum system will be almost completed by the end of this March.

DAΦNE operation with electron-cloud-clearing electrodes.

The effects of an electron cloud (e-cloud) on beam dynamics are one of the major factors limiting performances of high intensity positron, proton, and ion storage rings. In the electron-positron collider DAΦNE, namely, a horizontal beam instability due to the electron-cloud effect has been identified as one of the main limitations on the maximum stored positron beam current and as a source of beam quality deterioration. During the last machine shutdown in order to mitigate such instability, special electrodes have been inserted in all dipole and wiggler magnets of the positron ring. It has been the first installation all over the world of this type since long metallic electrodes have been installed in all arcs of the collider positron ring and are currently used during the machine operation in collision. This has allowed a number of unprecedented measurements (e-cloud instabilities growth rate, transverse beam size variation, tune shifts along the bunch train) where the e-cloud contribution is clearly evidenced by turning the electrodes on and off. In this Letter we briefly describe a novel design of the electrodes, while the main focus is on experimental measurements. Here we report all results that clearly indicate the effectiveness of the electrodes for e-cloud suppression.

Design and construction of the SuperKEKB vacuum system

A two-ring electron-positron collider with asymmetric energies—called the SuperKEKB—has been designed by the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) as an upgrade of the KEKB B-factory (KEKB), which completed 12 years of operation in 2010. It is anticipated that the SuperKEKB will reach a luminosity of 8 × 1035 cm−2 s−1, which is approximately 40 times larger than that of the original KEKB. The upgrade of the vacuum system is a key factor that will allow the SuperKEKB to achieve unprecedented high performance. Most of the beam pipes, especially in the positron ring, are newly manufactured to manage the electron cloud effect, and to reduce beam impedance, which is essential to keep the low-emittance beam stable. Our design of the vacuum system implements recent technologies and draws on various experiences and studies during the operation of the original KEKB. The basic design is near completion, and manufacturing of beam pipes and the major vacuum components, such as bellows chambers, gate valves and supports, are in progress. The installation of these components will start in 2013 with the aim of commissioning the SuperKEKB in 2014.

Application of MO-Type Flange for Accelerator Beam Ducts 3

Based on experiences in the precedent stain-less steel case, a possibility of employing copper-alloy and aluminum-alloy Matsumoto-Ohtsuka (MO)-type flanges in a vacuum beam pipes for a particle accelerator is experimentally studied. They can mitigate the heating problems found in the case of stainless-steel flanges under high-intensity beams, and also simplify the manufacturing procedure of beam pipes. Copper-alloy flanges show a comparable vacuum sealing property to the stainless-steel one, and several beam pipes with the copper-alloy flange has been successfully installed in the KEKB B-factory positron ring. The R&D on aluminum-alloy flanges has just started, and a promising result is obtained. Any coatings or treatments to improve the hardness of sealing part can be omitted if duralumin-series aluminum alloys are used. However, further detailed investigations are required about the hardness and stiffness properties of the gasket and flange materials before applying the flanges to the real machine.