Computer-Automated Linac Diagnostics and Data Acquisition
Computer interactive diagnostics have been developed and tested for measuring RF Linac electron beam position and emittance. Electron beam position is measured with ferrite-loaded stripline monitors. The measured signals are processed by an APPLE-II computer, displayed and updated (at the Linac repetition rate) on a monitor. Data to determine emittance is collected by measuring electron beam spot size (using the wire scanner technique) as the focal strength of a quadrupole triplet is adjusted around the focus at the scanner. The emittance is calculated by the APPLE-II making a hyperbolic curve fit to these data.
A Review of Accelerator Instrumentation
Some of the problems associated with the monitoring of accelerator beams, particularly storage rings’ beams, are reviewed along with their most common solutions. The various electrode structures used for the measurement of beam current, beam position, and the detection of the bunches’ transverse oscillations, yield pulses with sub-nanosecond widths. The electronics for the processing of these short pulses involves wide band techniques and circuits usually not readily available from industry or the integrated circuit market: Passive or active, successive integrations, linear gating, sample-and-hold circuits with nanosecond acquisition time, etc. This report also presents the work performed recently for monitoring the ultrashort beams of colliding linear accelerators or single-pass colliders. To minimize the beam emittance, the beam position must be measured with a high resolution, and digitized on a pulse-to-pulse basis. Experimental results obtained with the Stanford two-mile Linac single bunches are included.
The quantum particle in a box: what we can learn from classical electrodynamics
The problem of a charged particle enclosed in an infinite square potential well is analysed from the point of view of classical theory with the addition of the electromagnetic zero-point radiation field, with the aim to explore the extent to which such an analysis can contribute to enhance our understanding of the quantum behavior. First a proper treatment is made of the freely moving particle subject to the action of the radiation field, involving a frequency cutoff ωc. The jittering motion and the effective structure of the particle are sustained by the permanent action of the zero-point field. As a result, the particle interacts resonantly with the traveling field modes of frequency ωc in its proper frame of reference, which superpose to give rise to a modulated wave accompanying the particle. This is identified with the de Broglie wave, validating the choice of Compton’s frequency for ωc. For the stationary states of particles confined in the potential well, the Lorentz force produced by the accompanying field is shown to lead to discrete values for the mean speed and to an uneven probability distribution that echoes the corresponding quantum distribution. The relevance of the results obtained and the limitations of the classical approach used, are discussed in the context of present-day stochastic electrodynamics.