Evolution of laser induced perturbation and experimental observation of space charge waves in the University Of Maryland Electron Ring (UMER)

The University of Maryland Electron Ring (UMER) is a scaled model to investigate the transverse and longitudinal physics of space charge dominated beams. It uses a 10-keV electron beam along with other scaled beam parameters that model the larger machines but at a lower cost. Understanding collective behavior of intense, charged particle beams due to their space charge effects is crucial for advanced accelerator research and applications. This paper presents an experimental study of longitudinal dynamics of an initial density modulation on a space-charge dominated beam. A novel experimental technique of producing a perturbation using a laser is discussed.Using a laser to produce a perturbation provides the ability to launch a pure density modulation and to have better control over the amount of perturbation introduced. Collective effects like space charge waves and their propagation over long distances in a quadrupole channel are studied.A one dimensional cold fluid model is used for theoretical analysis and simulations are carried out in WARP-RZ.