Simulations of Error-Induced Beam Degradation in Fermilab´s Booster Synchrotron

Individual particle orbits in a beam will respond to both external focusing and accelerating forces as well as internal space-charge forces. The external forces will reflect unavoidable systematic and random machine errors, or imperfections, such as jitter in magnet and radio-frequency power supplies, as well as translational and rotational magnet alignment errors. The beam responds in a self-consistent fashion to these errors; they continually do work on the beam and thereby act as a constant source of energy input. Consequently, halo formation and emittance growth can be induced, resulting in beam degradation and loss. We have upgraded the ORBIT-FNAL package and used it to compute effects of machine errors on emittance dilution and halo formation in the existing FNAL-Booster synchrotron. This package can be applied to study other synchrotrons and storage rings as well.