Dynamic Aperture Optimization for Low Emittance Light Sources

State of the art low emittance light source lattices, require small bend angle dipole magnets and strong quadrupoles. This in turn creates large chromaticity and small value of dispersion in the lattice. To counter the high linear chromaticity, strong sextupoles are required which limit the dynamic aperture. Traditional methods for expanding the dynamic aperture use harmonic sextupoles to counter the tune shift with amplitude. This has been successful up to now, but is non-deterministic and limited as the sextupole strength increases, driving higher order nonlinearities. We have taken a different approach that makes use of the tune flexibility of a TBA lattice to minimize the lowest order nonlinearities, freeing the harmonic sextupoles to counter the higher order nonlinearities. This procedure is being used to improve the nonlinear dynamics of the NSLS-II lattice.