AC space-charge effects in gyroklystron amplifiers

When ac space charge is included in the analysis of weakly relativistic multicavity gyroklystron amplifiers, the optimized nonlinear efficiency becomes a function of beam current. For a cold beam (no velocity spread), the efficiency is maximum at zero current and decreases monotonically as the current increases. The zero current limit of the optimized efficiency when ac space-charge effects are included is not the same as the optimized efficiency with no space charge; it is significantly higher. This rather strange behavior is regularized when velocity spread is taken into account; in that case, the nonlinear efficiency increases with beam current until it reaches a maximum, then falls off slowly. The increase in the efficiency is attributed to enhanced bunching associated with the saturation of the space-charge instability in the drift region; the reduction in efficiency at high current occurs because space charge induces an additional velocity spread in the beam