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The University of Maryland Electron Ring (UMER), designed for transport studies of space-charge dominated beams in a strong focusing lattice, is nearing completion. UMER models, for example, the recirculator accelerator envisioned as a possible driver for heavy-ion inertial fusion. The UMER lattice will consist of 36 alternating-focusing (FODO) periods over an 11.5 m circumference. The main diagnostics are phosphor screens and capacitive beam position monitors placed at the center of each 20° bending section. In addition, pepper-pot and slit-wire emittance meters are in operation. We present experimental results for three cases of strong space-charge dominated transport (7.2, 24, and 85 mA, at 10 keV) and contrast them with one case in the emittance-dominated regime (0.6 mA at 10 keV). With focusing given by σ0=76°, the zero-current betatron phase advance per period, the range of currents corresponds to a space-charge tune depression of 0.2 to 0.8. This range is unprecedented for a circular machine. The b...

The U.S. Heavy Ion Fusion program has recently commissioned several new experiments. In the High Current Experiment [P. A. Seidl et al., Laser Part. Beams 20, 435 (2003)], a single low-energy beam with driver-scale charge-per-unit-length and space-charge potential is being used to study the limits to transportable current posed by nonlinear fields and secondary atoms, ions, and electrons. The Neutralized Transport Experiment similarly employs a low-energy beam with driver-scale perveance to study final focus of high perveance beams and neutralization for transport in the target chamber. Other scaled experiments—the University of Maryland Electron Ring [P. G. O’Shea et al., accepted for publication in Laser Part. Beams] and the Paul Trap Simulator Experiment [R. C. Davidson, H. Qin, and G. Shvets, Phys. Plasmas 7, 1020 (2000)]—will provide fundamental physics results on processes with longer scale lengths. An experiment to test a new injector concept is also in the design stage. This paper will describe th...

A two‐year study of recirculating induction heavy ion accelerators as low‐cost driver for inertial‐fusion energy applications was recently completed. The projected cost of a 4 MJ accelerator was estimated to be about $500 M (million) and the efficiency was estimated to be 35%. The principal technology issues include energy recovery of the ramped dipole magnets, which is achieved through use of ringing inductive/capacitive circuits, and high repetition rates of the induction cell pulsers, which is accomplished through arrays of field effect transistor (FET) switches. Principal physics issues identified include minimization of particle loss from interactions with the background gas, and more demanding emittance growth and centroid control requirements associated with the propagation of space‐charge‐dominated beams around bends and over large path lengths. In addition, instabilities such as the longitudinal resistive instability, beam‐breakup instability and betatron‐orbit instability were found to be controllable with careful design.

The University of Maryland Electron Ring (UMER) is a low-energy, high current recirculator for beam physics research [M. Reiser et al., in Proceedings of the 1999 Particle Accelerator Conference, New York, NY (IEEE, New York, 1999), p. 234]. Ring construction is completed for multiturn operation of beams over a broad range of intensities and initial conditions. UMER is an extremely versatile experimental platform with a beam current of up to 100mA and a pulse length as long as 100ns. UMER is addressing issues in beam physics relevant to many applications that require intense beams of high quality, such as advanced concept accelerators, free electron lasers, spallation neutron sources, and future heavy-ion drivers for inertial fusion. The primary focus of this paper is to present experimental results in the areas of beam steering and multiturn operation of the ring. Unique beam steering algorithms now include measurement of the beam response matrix at each quadrupole and matrix inversion by singular value ...