U.S. Particle Accelerator School
U.S. Particle Accelerator School
America's National School of Accelerator Science and Technology

Collective Instabilities course

Sponsoring University:

Colorado State University

Course Name:

Collective Instabilities

Instructors:

Alex Chao and Gennady Stupakov, SLAC National Accelerator Lab and Cedric Hernalsteens, EPFL and CERN


Purpose and Audience
This course will instruct students in the topic of the physics of collective instabilities in modern particle accelerators.  It is designed for graduate students pursuing accelerator physics as a career or having interest in learning this subject of accelerator physics.

Prerequisites
Classical mechanics, electrodynamics, and physical or engineering mathematics, all at entrance graduate level, and the USPAS course "Accelerator Fundamentals" or equivalent.

It is the responsibility of the student to ensure that they meet the course prerequisites or have equivalent experience.

Objectives
On completion of this course, the students are expected to understand the basic physical principles that determine the physics of collective instabilities. They will have learned the frequently used terminologies such as wakefields and impedances. Applying this knowledge, they will then have developed an insight into the mechanisms of the various collective instabilities that play the role of limiting the beam intensities in linear as well as circular accelerators.

Instructional Method
This course includes a series of lectures and exercise sessions.  Homework problems will be assigned daily which will be graded and answers provided in the exercise session in the following day. Computer classes will be arranged in some of the afternoons. There will be an open-book final exam at the conclusion of the course.

Course Content
The emphasis is to introduce the physical principles of the instability mechanisms. Topics covered include wakefields and impedances, Panofsky-Wenzel theorem, several most prominent instabilities, and the natural cure-all, the Landau damping.  
Reading requirements
To be provided by the USPAS: reprint copy of "Physics of Collective Beam Instabilities in High Energy Accelerators", by Alexander W. Chao, Wiley (1993). Some additional notes will be distributed as supplements.

Credit Requirements
Students will be evaluated based on the following performances: Final exam (50%), Homework assignments and class participation (50%).



Colorado State University course number: ENGR 697 Group Study: Collective Instabilities
Indiana University course number: Physics 571
Michigan State University course number: PHY 963
MIT course number: 8.790 "Accelerator Physics"