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Plasma wakefield acceleration is a promising technology to reduce the size of particle accelerators. The use of high energy protons to drive wakefields in plasma has been demonstrated during Run 1 of the AWAKE programme at CERN. Protons of energy 400 GeV drove wakefields that accelerated electrons to 2 GeV in under 10 m of plasma. The AWAKE collaboration is now embarking on Run 2 with the main aims to demonstrate stable accelerating gradients of 0.5-1 GV/m, preserve emittance of the electron bunches during acceleration and develop plasma sources scalable to 100s of metres and beyond. By the end of Run 2, the AWAKE scheme should be able to provide electron beams for particle physics experiments and several possible experiments have already been evaluated. This article summarises the programme of AWAKE Run 2 and how it will be achieved as well as the possible application of the AWAKE scheme to novel particle physics experiments., De fyra första författarna delar förstaförfattarskapet.

A long, narrow, relativistic charged particle bunch propagating in plasma is subject to the self-modulation (SM) instability. We show that SM of a proton bunch can be seeded by the wakefields driven by a preceding electron bunch. SM timing reproducibility and control are at the level of a small fraction of the modulation period. With this seeding method, we independently control the amplitude of the seed wakefields with the charge of the electron bunch and the growth rate of SM with the charge of the proton bunch. Seeding leads to larger growth of the wakefields than in the instability case.

This thesis describes the upgrade of the first high power X-band RF test for high gradient accelerating structures at CERN, as required for the e+ e- collider research program; Compact Linear Collider, CLIC. Significant improvements to the control system and operation of the first test stand, Xbox-1, are implemented. The design and commissioning of the new Low Level Radio Frequency, LLRF, system is described in detail. The upgrade also encompasses software, interlock systems, timing, safety and control. The new LLRF requires an up-convertor to convert an input signal at 187.4 MHz to 11.806 GHz. The most common method is a phase locked loop, PLL, an alternative method was envisioned which uses single side-band up-convertor. This necessitated the design and manufacture of a custom cavity filter. The up-convertor and PLL are compared and both are implemented in the new LLRF. The new LLRF system is implemented at Xbox1 and used to RF condition a 50 MW CPI klystron, the final output power was 45 MW for a 50 ns RF pulse length. The phase and amplitude of the LLRF, TWT and klystron are characterised with both the PLL and up-convertor. The klystron phase stability was studied using a sensitivity analysis. The waveguide network between the klystron and the accelerating structures is approximately 30 m. This network is subject to environmental phase changes which affect the phase stability of the RF arriving at the structures. A single path inteferometer was designed which will allow a phase measurement pulse at a secondary frequency to be injected into the waveguide network interleaved with klystron pulses. The interferometer is commissioned in the lab and low power measurements validate its operation. The system is then integrated into the high power network at Xbox1 and used to measure phase shifts in the waveguide network which are correlated with temperature.

Pollution reduction from waste management and energy generation is necessary to mitigate climate change and is one of the major challenges of the 21th century. This can be achieved through the development of innovative energy recovery technologies from biomass and wastes, such as microwave plasma gasification. An envelope of stable CO2 plasma operation is described, by varying working gas flow rate at applied microwave powers between 1 and 6 kW, whereas H2O plasma operation is possible with flow rate ranging from 20 to 50 g/min and microwave powers between 2.5 and 6 kW. The temperature generated in a large chamber connected to the plasma torch is recorded, reaching up to 850°C, showing a heterogeneous temperature distribution. In addition, optical emission spectroscopy measurements provide an insight into plasma chemistry and demonstrate the dissociation of CO2 and H2O molecules at extremely high temperatures of up to 6,300°C assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium. The experimental results demonstrate that the microwave plasma torch provides an ideal environment for gasification with high temperature and very chemically reactive species. This study provides valuable information for the design of microwave plasma gasification reactors with great potential for effective solid feedstock conversion into high quality syngas for energy production.

Microwave-induced plasma (MIP) is an innovative technology with potential application for waste treatment and clean energy generation. The study presents the investigation of an MIP torch operated with carbon dioxide and steam. Optical spectroscopy measurements demonstrate the dissociation of CO2 and H2O molecules. This work shows that the MIP torch can generate a high temperature environment with very active chemical species, making it a promising technology for waste and biomass gasification.

High energy particle accelerators have been crucial in providing a deeper understanding of fundamental particles and the forces that govern their interactions. In order to increase the energy or reduce the size of the accelerator, new acceleration schemes need to be developed. Plasma wakefield acceleration [1–5], in which the electrons in a plasma are excited, leading to strong electric fields, is one such promising novel acceleration technique. Pioneering experiments have shown that an intense laser pulse [6–9] or electron bunch [10, 11] traversing a plasma, drives electric fields of tens of giga-volts per metre and above. These values are well beyond those achieved in conventional radio frequency (RF) accelerators which are limited to about 0.1 giga-volt per metre. A limitation of laser pulses and electron bunches is their low stored energy, which motivates the use of multiple stages to reach very high energies [5, 12]. The use of proton bunches is compelling, as they have the potential to drive wakefields and accelerate electrons to high energy in a single accelerating stage [13]. The long proton bunches currently available can be used, as they undergo a process called self-modulation [14–16], a particle–plasma interaction which longitudinally splits the bunch into a series of high density microbunches, which then act resonantly to create large wakefields. The Advanced Wakefield (AWAKE) experiment at CERN [17–19] uses intense bunches of protons, each of energy 400 giga-electronvolts (GeV), with a total 2 bunch energy of 19 kilojoules, to drive a wakefield in a 10 metre long plasma. Bunches of electrons are injected into the wakefield formed by the proton microbunches. This paper presents measurements of electrons accelerated up to 2 GeV at the AWAKE experiment. This constitutes the first demonstration of proton-driven plasma wakefield acceleration. The potential for this scheme to produce very high energy electron bunches in a single accelerating stage [20] means

The design of the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) requires two pairs of crab cavities to be installed either side of Interaction Points (IPs) 1 (ATLAS) and 5 (CMS) to compensate for the geometric reduction in luminosity due to the beam crossing angle at the IP. The HL-LHC beam current is a factor of two larger than the LHC design value. The existing RF system has insufficient power to use the existing low level RF (LLRF) scheme for HL-LHC and therefore a new scheme is proposed which results in an irregular bunch pattern in the ring; here in referred to as a phase modulation. In this paper we study the effect of this phase modulation on the crab cavity scheme and the resulting impact on peak luminosity. We have developed an analytical model to calculate the luminosity and its dependence on the related beam and RF parameters. We compare this model to tracking simulations in PYTRACK and show a good agreement between the model and simulations. In the case of a coherent phase error between the counter-rotating bunch trains, having the maximum expected time shift of 100 ps (0.25 radians at the RF frequency), the reduction of analytical peak luminosity is found to be 1.89% when the crabbing voltage is 6.8 MV. For incoherent phase errors, the luminosity reduction for a 100 ps phase error is 5.67%; however the expected incoherent phase error is significantly less than 100 ps. These reductions are not foreseen as an issue when the crabbing scheme is used for luminosity levelling during physics experiments.

CERN’s compact linear collider CLIC requires crab cavities on opposing linacs to rotate bunches of particles into alignment at the interaction point (IP). These cavities are located approximately 25 metres either side of the IP. The luminosity target requires synchronisation of their RF phases to better than 5 fs r.m.s. This is to be achieved by powering both cavities from one high power RF source, splitting the power and delivering it along two waveguide paths that are controlled to be identical in length to within a micrometre. The waveguide will be operated as an interferometer. A high power phase shifter for adjusting path lengths has been successfully developed and operated in an interferometer. The synchronisation target has been achieved in a low power prototype system.

We present the novel beam arrival monitor pickup design currently under construction at Daresbury Laboratory, Warrington, UK. The pickup consists of four flat electrodes in a transverse gap. CST Particle Studio simulations have been undertaken for the new pickup design as well as a pickup design from DESY, which is used as a reference for comparison. Simulation results have highlighted two advantages of the new pickup design over the DESY design; the signal bandwidth is 25 GHZ, which is half that of the DESY design and the response slope is a factor of 1.6 greater. We discuss optimisation studies of the design parameters in order to maximise the response slope for bandwidths up to 50 GHz and present the final design of the pickup.

CERN’s Compact linear collider (CLIC) will require crab cavities to align the bunches to provide effective head-on collisions. An X-band quasi-TM11 deflecting cavity has been designed and manufactured for testing at CERN’s Xbox-2 high power standalone test stand. The cavity is currently under test and has reached an input power level in excess of 40MW, with a measured breakdown rate of better than 10-5 breakdowns per pulse. This paper also describes surface field quantities which are important in assessing the expected BDR when designing high gradient structures.

This thesis describes the development and operation of multiple high power X-band RF test facilities for high gradient acceleration and deflecting structures at CERN, as re-quired for the e+ e- collider research programme CLIC (Compact Linear Collider). Signif-icant improvements to the control system and operation of the first test stand, Xbox-1 are implemented. The development of the second X-band test stand at CERN, Xbox-2 is followed from inception to completion. The LLRF (Low Level Radio Frequency) system, interlock system and control algorithms are designed and validated. The third test stand at CERN, Xbox-3 is introduced and designs for the LLRF and control systems are pre-sented. The first of the modulator/klystron units from Toshiba and Scandinova is tested. CLIC will require crab cavities to align the bunches in order to provide effective head-on collisions. An X-band travelling wave cavity using a quasi-TM11 mode for deflection has been designed, manufactured and tested at the Xbox-2 high power test stand. The cavity reached an input power level in excess of 50 MW, at pulse widths of 150 ns with a measured breakdown rate (BDR) of better than 10-5 breakdowns per pulse (BDs/pulse). At the nominal pulse width of 200 ns, the cavity reached an input power level of 43 MW with a BDR of 10-6 BDs/pulse. These parameters are well above the nominal design pa-rameters of an input power of 13.35 MW with a 200 ns pulse length. This work also de-scribes surface field quantities which are important in assessing the expected BDR when designing high gradient structures.

As a drop-in replacement of Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) 5kW CW klystron system, a 1497MHz, high efficiency magnetron using injection phase lock [1] and slow amplitude variation using magnetic field trimming and anode voltage modulation has been studied systematically using MatLab/Simulink simulations. The magnetron model is based the characteristics of experiment and manufacture chart on a 2.45GHz cooker type CW magnetron. To achieve high performance of a superconducting radio frequency (SRF) acceleration cavity with an electron beam loading, the magnetron's low level radio frequency (LLRF) control has been studied in two lock loops. In the frequency lock loop, the characterized anode V-I curve, output power (the tube electronic efficiency) and frequency dependence to the anode current (pushing by Vaughan model) and the Rieke diagram (frequency pulling by the reactive load) are simulated. The magnetic field B and anode voltage V in Hartree condition are satisfied and the effect of filament heater power to the frequency lock is also included. In the phase lock loop, the Adler equation governing injection phase stability is included in this study. The control of the magnet trim-coil power-supply and of the anode voltage modulation-switching power-supply has been also simulated to achieve the amplitude modulation. The result of linear responses to the amplitude and phase of SRF cavity will be presented in this paper. The requirement of LLRF control will be given by this result.

Magnetrons offer lower capital costs and higher efficiencies than klystrons, however are natural oscillators rather than amplifiers. This paper reviews techniques and issues for applying high efficiency L band magnetrons to long pulse, high intensity proton linacs. Reference is made to a proof of principle experiment whereby the phase of an SRF cavity was accurately controlled when energised by a magnetron.

An experiment is proposed that uses a pair of RF cavities as a source and detector of hidden sector photons (HSP). HSP's are hypothetical low-mass dark matter candidates with coupling to ordinary photons. SRF cavities are favoured in this experiment as they are able to store a high number of photons for a given input power due to the high Q available. When powered, such a cavity will act as a source of HSPs, while an empty cavity will be able to capture any HSP's decaying back into RF photons. Such an experiment (CASCADE) is being developed at the Cockcroft Institute using single cell 1.3 GHz cavities previously utilised for manufacturing and BCP studies. The aims of the CASCADE project are detailed, along with the system specification.

"Beta Beams" produce collimated pure electron (anti-) neutrino beams by accelerating beta active ions to high energies and having them decay in a race track shaped storage ring of 7 km circumference, the Decay Ring. EUROnu Beta Beams are based on CERN infrastructures and existing machines. Using existing machines may be an advantage for the cost evaluation, however, this choice is also constraining the Beta Beams. The isotope pair of choice for the Beta Beam is 6He and 18Ne. However before the EUROnu studies one of the needed isotopes, 18Ne, could not be produced in rates that satisfy the needs for physics reach of the Beta Beam. Therefore, studies of alternative beta emitters, 8Li and 8B, with properties interesting for a Beta Beam have been proposed and have been studied within EUROnu. These alternative isotopes could be produced by using a small storage ring, in which the beam traverses a target, creating the 8Li and 8B isotopes. This Production Ring, the injection Linac and the target system have been evaluated. Measurements of the cross-section of the reactions to produce the Beta Beam isotopes show interesting results. A device to collect the produced isotopes from the target has been developed and tested. However, the obtained rates of the 8Li and 8B, using the Production Ring for production of 8Li and 8B, is not yet, according to simulations, giving the rates of isotopes that would be needed. Therefore, a new method of producing the 18Ne isotope has been developed and tested giving good production rates. The baseline presented for the Beta Beam is therefore now to use the 6He and 18Ne isotopes for neutrino production. A 60 GHz ECRIS prototype, the first in the world, was developed and tested with contributions from EUROnu. The Beta Beam has to take into account the modifications of the injectors planned in view of LHC-upgrades. The Decay Ring lattices for the 8Li and 8B have been developed, the lattice for 6He and 18Ne has been optimized also to ensure the h

Crab cavities rotate bunches from opposing beams to achieve effective head-on collision in CLIC or collisions at an adjustable angle in LHC. Without crab cavities 90% of achievable luminosity at CLIC would be lost. In the LHC, the crab cavities allow the same or larger integrated luminosity while reducing significantly the requested dynamic range of physics detectors. The focus for CLIC is accurate phase synchronisation of the cavities, adequate damping of wakefields and modest amplitude stability. For the LHC, the main LLRF issues are related to imperfections: beam offsets in cavities, RF noise, measurement noise in feedback loops, failure modes and mitigations. This report develops issues associated with synchronising the CLIC cavities. It defines an RF system and experiments to validate the approach. It reports on the development of hardware for measuring the phase performance of the RF distributions system and cavities. For the LHC, the hardware being very close to the existing LLRF, the report focuses on the requirements on the LLRF to mitigate anticipated imperfections.

The CASCADE experiment is a "light shining through a wall" (LSW) experiment consisting of microwave cavities. It is dedicated to search for photon oscillations into hidden sector photons (HSP). The main measurement setup consists of two normal conducting TM010 pillbox cavities at 1.3 GHz. In this paper we present the planned measurement campaign that is divided in four main phases.

In certain high power RF systems multipactor cannot be avoided for all operating points, but its existence places limits on performance, efficiency, lifetime, and reliability. As an example multipactor in the input couplers of superconducting RF cavities can be a major limitation to the maximum RF power. Several studies have concentrated on rectangular waveguide input couplers which are used in many light sources. Most of these studies neglect space charge assuming that the effect of space charge is simply to defocus the electron bunches. Modelling multipactor to saturation is of interest in determining the performance of waveguide under a range of conditions. Particle-in-cell modelling including space charge has been performed for 500 MHz half-height rectangular waveguide. Phase plots of electron trajectories can aid understanding the processes taking place in the multipactor. Results strongly suggest that the multipacting trajectories are strongly perturbed by space charge causing the electrons to transition from two-surface to single-surface trajectories as the multipactor approaches saturation.

Multipactor is a major cause of field limitation in many superconducting rf cavities. Multipacting is a particular issue for deflecting mode cavities as the typical behavior is not well studied, understood, or parametrized. In this paper an approximate analytical model for the prediction of multipactor in the iris region of deflecting mode cavities is developed. This new but simple model yields a clear explanation on the broad range of rf field levels over which the multipactor can occur. The principle multipactors under investigation here are two-point multipactors associated with cyclotron motion in the cavity’s rf magnetic field. The predictions from the model are compared to numerical simulations and good agreement is obtained. The results are also compared to experimental results previously reported by KEK and are also found in good agreement.

The bunch size and crossing angle planned for CERN's compact linear collider CLIC dictate that crab cavities on opposing linacs will be needed to rotate bunches of particles into alignment at the interaction point if the desired luminosity is to be achieved. Wakefield effects, RF phase errors between crab cavities on opposing linacs and unpredictable beam loading can each act to reduce luminosity below that anticipated for bunches colliding in perfect alignment. Unlike acceleration cavities, which are normally optimised for gradient, crab cavities must be optimised primarily for luminosity. Accepting the crab cavity technology choice of a 12 GHz, normal conducting, travelling wave structure as explained in the text, this paper develops an analytical approach to optimise cell number and iris diameter.

This report sets out the established theory of driving a mode in a beam loaded, multi-cell cavity via a waveguide coupling and derives associated envelope equations from which time domain solutions are developed. Time domain solution allows accurate simulation with realistic microphonic spectra, beamloading, drive amplifier characteristics, controller and measurement errors to be encompassed. A computer code that uses the model is used to compute limits on phase and amplitude stability of a dipole mode as a function of disturbance and control system latency for a superconducting cavity being developed for use as a crab cavity for the ILC. A crab cavity is a deflection cavity operated with a 90o phase shift with respect to the beam so that the front of a bunch gets kicked one way whilst the back gets kicked the other way.

The CLIC machine incorporates a 20 mrad crossing angle at the IP to aid the extraction of spent beams. In order to recover the luminosity lost through the crossing angle a crab cavity is proposed to rotate the bunches prior to collision. The crab cavity is chosen to have the same frequency as the main linac (11.9942 GHz) as a compromise between size, phase stability requirements and beam loading. It is proposed to use a HE11 mode travelling wave structure as the CLIC crab cavity in order to minimise beam loading and mode separation. The position of the crab cavity close to the final focus enhances the effect of transverse wake-fields so effective wake-field damping is required. A damped detuned structure is proposed to suppress and de-cohere the wake-field hence reducing their effect. Design considerations for the CLIC crab cavity will be discussed as well as the proposed high power testing of these structures at SLAC.

Many particle accelerators are proposing the use of crab cavities to correct for accelerator crossing angles or for the production of short bunches in light sources. These cavities produce a rotation to the bunch in a well-defined polarization plane. If the plane of the rotation does not align with the horizontal axis of the accelerator, the bunch will receive a small amount of spurious vertical bunch rotation. For accelerators with small vertical beam sizes and large beam-beam effects, this can cause significant unwanted effects. In this paper we propose the use of a 2nd smaller crab cavity in the vertical plane in order to cancel this effect and investigate its use in numerical simulations

The main body of work presented in this thesis is precise frequency and phase control of a 1.2 kW CW cooker magnetron (National 2M137) locked to a 10 MHz reference injected with a very small RF signal (of the order of -40 dBc) creating a suitable RF source for particle accelerators and other sophisticated applications. We will go on to discuss the characterization of the magnetron with differing heater powers and load conditions when operated with a low cost switched mode power supply. We similarly identify three different regimes of the magnetron operation with respect to the heater power: firstly low noise operation for small heater powers (up to 15W), secondly unstable operation for mid-range heater powers (15W to 30W) and thirdly high noise operation at high heater powers (30W to 54W). We then introduce a novel method to lock the magnetron output frequency to the 10 MHz reference using a digital frequency synthesizer IC (Analog Devices ADF4113) in a negative feedback loop, with this method we exploit the use of the pushing mechanism where the ADF41113 controls the power supply output to vary the magnetron’s anode current, keeping its natural frequency locked to the reference. We next investigate the injection locking of the frequency locked magnetron with small injection levels (-29 dBc to -43 dBc) under differing operating conditions and observe a phase jitter performance of the order of+/-13 o for very small heater power and -29 dBc injection level. We then fast switch/ramp the injection phase and establish the maximum rate of change of the magnetron output phase. This rate was found to be 4p/us for -29 dBc injection level and 44W heater power. We finally discuss the implementation of a fast DSP based feedback control on the injection phase to improve the magnetron phase jitter performance to below 1o r.m.s.

Multipactor charts for parallel plate geometries have been computed using a program that numerically solves a phase equation for the crossing times rather than by detailed computation of electronic paths. Motion in three-dimensional is tracked and detailed models for secondary emission and elastic collisions with the walls are employed. The speed advantage of the method allows the dependence of multipactor prediction on surface properties and multipactor criteria, such as the number of electrons within a shower that are followed, to be assessed over a broad parameter range.