Particle-In-Cell simulations of halo particle production in intense charged particle beams propagating through a quadrupole focusing field with varying lattice amplitude

The transverse compression and dynamics of intense charged particle beams, propagating through a periodic quadrupole lattice, play an important role in many accelerator physics applications. Typically, the compression can be achieved by means of increasing the focusing strength of the lattice along the beam propagation direction. However, beam propagation through the lattice transition region inevitably leads to a certain level of beam mismatch and halo formation. In this paper we present a detailed analysis of these phenomena using particle-in-cell (PIC) numerical simulations performed with the WARP code. A new definition of beam halo is proposed in this work that provides the opportunity to carry out a quantitative analysis of halo production by a beam mismatch.