Beam Movies - Collected by Ralph Assmann

Accelerator physics aims at the generation of beams with many billions of particles and their acceleration to energies in the Giga to Tera electron volt range. These beams are transported over many km's and finally focused into a tiny transverse area, often much below the cross-section of a human hair. Many complicated and fascinating phenomena can be observed during this process. Beam movies can illustrate the perturbations that can occur and the art of beam tuning. 

 

1) STANFORD LINEAR ACCELERATOR CENTER 1999:
Measurement: 10 billion electrons accelerated to 30 GeV and focused into 18micrometer times 10 micrometer

The following movies show particles beams generated in 1999 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in the USA. About 10 billion electrons were accelerated to 30 GeV and confined to a small transverse area, smaller than the transverse cross section of a human hair. The movies were recorded from the light emitted when the ultra-relativistic electrons traversed a thin target.

Several stages in beam tuning for the Plasma Wakefield Experiment E-157 are documented. Copyright of the movies is held by the E-157 collaboration (LBNL, SLAC, UCLA, USC), R. Assmann et al.

The people (some of them)... The laboratory... The accelerator... The parameters...
       
     
       
14-Nov-1999 9:58pm Heavy tuning has started
Strong changes in beam behavior while changing bunch compression
Link to full movie
(MPEG)
16-Nov-1999 8:29am Tuning is ongoing
More subtle tuning towards smaller spot size
Link to full movie
(MPEG)
16-Nov-1999 11:29am Increase the bunch current
See feedback response after sudden 10% increase of bunch current...
Link to full movie
(MPEG)
18-Nov-1999 6:05pm Pretty nicely tuned up
Transverse spot size is small and pretty stable
Link to full movie
(MPEG)
19-Nov-1999 1:33pm Best beam tuning
Beam is smaller than a human hair. Reached 10 times 18 micron. We are happy...
Link to full movie
(MPEG)
  The art of beam tuning...
Comparison before and after - squeezing 10 billion electrons into a tiny spot!
Link to full movie
(MPEG)
  The beam shows a heart
Who can reproduce this?
Link to full movie
(MPEG)

Ralph Assmann, Monday March 24, 2003 13:09:54 +0100