Control of beam dynamics in high energy induction linacs

The advent of laser-ion-guiding in the Advanced Test Accelerator along with the development of accelerator cavities optimized with respect to beam breakup coupling impedance now make it possible to consider a new class of high current, high energy linear induction accelerators. The control of the beam breakup and other instabilities by laser guiding and by various magnetic focusing schemes is discussed along with the scaling laws for the design of such machines to minimize the growth of the beam breakup instability. Many linacs, particularly induction linacs are limited in performance by the beam breakup (BBU) instability. The instability is found in two forms. In the first form the accelerating cavities communicate with one another through interaction with the beam and through propagation of cavity fields through the accelerator structure. In the second form which is the more virulent of the two, the cavities couple to each other only through their interactions with the beam. It is this second form of BBU that is discussed