Simulation, measurement, and mitigation of beam instability caused by the kicker impedance in the 3-GeV rapid cycling synchrotron at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex

The transverse impedance of eight extraction pulsed kicker magnets is a strong beam instability source in the 3-GeV rapid cycling synchrotron (RCS) at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex. Significant beam instability occurs even at half of the designed 1 MW beam power when the chromaticity (xi) is fully corrected for the entire acceleration cycle by using ac sextupole (SX) fields. However, if xi is fully corrected only at the injection energy by using dc SX fields, the beam is stable. In order to study realistic beam instability scenarios, including the effect of space charge and to determine practical measures to accomplish 1 MW beam power, we enhance the ORBIT particle tracking code to incorporate all realistic time-dependent machine parameters, including the time dependence of the impedance itself. The beam stability properties beyond 0.5 MW beam power are found to be very sensitive to a number of parameters in both simulations and measurements. In order to stabilize a beam at 1 MW beam power, two practical measures based on detailed and systematic simulation studies are determined, namely, (i) proper manipulation of the betatron tunes during acceleration and (ii) reduction of the dc SX field to reduce the. correction even at injection. The simulation results are well reproduced by measurements, and, as a consequence, an acceleration to 1 MW beam power is successfully demonstrated. In this paper, details of the ORBIT simulation and the corresponding experimental results up to 1 MW of beam power are presented. To further increase the RCS beam power, beam stability issues and possible measures beyond 1 MW beam power are also considered.