First Beam Profile Measurements Based on Light Radiation of Atoms Excited by a Particle Beam

Diagnostics of intense particle beams requires development of new nondestructive beam monitoring methods. There are several kinds of diagnostic devices based on registration of products of accelerated beam particles interaction with atoms and molecules of residual gas in an accelerator vacuum chamber. Usually these devices used as beam profile monitors, which register electrons or/and ions produced in collisions of beam particles with residual gas .Some attempts were performed in application of light radiation of excited atoms. However, up to now this direction in the beam diagnostics was not developed properly. Nevertheless, it deserves more attentive consideration because it has several advantages as compared with the methods based on ionization particle registration. First measurements at COSY-Juelich are presented and the pro and contra of the method is discussed