Speaker
Description
High gradient electron linacs are a key ingredient for advanced accelerator applications ranging from particle-driven radiation sources to lepton colliders. The overall performance of such machines strongly relies on the quality of the electron beams they transport and accelerate. In particular, due to the high phase space density, the dynamics of high brightness beams are affected by strong self-induced electromagnetic fields causing mutual interaction of the charged particles through space-charge and wakefield mechanisms. Such effects become extremely important in high gradient RF linacs where the small irises enhance the wakefield coupling whereas, at the same time, the radial focusing acts against significant space charge forces. As a consequence, beam dynamics studies capable of investigating the performance, as well as the operational limits, of a given machine are crucial. However, the modeling of collective effects in simulation codes tracking large particle ensembles often requires significant, time-intensive numerical resources. Here we thus present alternative, simplified approaches for the description of space-charge and wakefield effects that permit streamlined computations. The features of such models are discussed and validating comparisons with existing tracking codes are shown. In addition, we present examples of applications to state-of-the-art facilities currently under design.
