Plasma considerations in the IPNS RCS

Significant ionization appears to occur in the Rapid Cycling Synchrotron (RCS) during its 14 ms acceleration period leading to plasma formation and neutralization. The beam may in fact be over-neutralized, causing the tune to increase during the acceleration cycle. The overall tune shift in the RCS appears to be close to +0.5. The presence of plasma may help explain why longitudinal phase modulation can so quickly couple to transverse motion. In addition, plasmas tend to be inductive and the RCS appears to exhibit a relatively high inductance. Measurements of the electron cloud and plasma densities adjacent to the beam should be made. In addition to the RFA and Swept Analyzer diagnostics mentioned at the Workshop, other techniques might be attempted. If plasma is present, then a small, biased-probe might be useful (e.g., a Langmuir probe), or with the proper choice of geometry, an optics-based measurement for line density (e.g., an interferometer) might be employed, perhaps using microwaves for increased sensitivity