We report on the development of a new technique for the measurement of the longitudinal beam profile in storage rings. This technique, which has been successfully demonstrated at the Advanced Light Source, mixes the synchrotron radiation with the light from a mode-locked solid state laser oscillator in a non-linear crystal. The up-converted radiation is then detected with a photomultiplier and processed to extract, store, and display the required information. The available choices of laser repetition frequency, pulse width, and phase modulation give a wide range of options for matching the bunch configuration of a particular storage ring. Besides the dynamic measurement of the longitudinal profile of each bunch, the instrument can monitor the evolution of the bunch tails, the presence of untrapped particles and their diffusion into nominally empty RF buckets ("ghost bunches").

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), presently under construction at CERN, requires monitoring the parasitic charge in the 3.3 ms long gap in the machine fill structure. This gap, referred to as the abort gap, corresponds to the raise time of the abort kickers magnets. Any circulating particle present in the abort gap at the time of the kickers firing is lost inside the ring, rather than in the beam dump, and can potentially damage a number of the LHC components. CERN specifications indicate a linear density of 6 x 106 protons over a 100 ns interval as the maximum charge safely allowed to accumulate in the abort gap at 7 TeV. We present a study of an abort gap monitor, based on a photomultiplier tube with a gated microchannel plate, which would allow for detecting such low charge densities by monitoring the synchrotron radiation emitted in the dedicated diagnostics port. We show results of beam test experiments at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) using a Hamamatsu 5961U MCP-PMT, which indicate that such an instrument has the required sensitivity to meet LHC specifications.

We report on the development of an instrument for the measurement of the longitudinal beam profile in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The technique used, which has been successfully demonstrated at the Advanced Light Source, mixes the synchrotron radiation with the light from a mode-locked solid state laser oscillator in a non-linear crystal. The up-converted radiation is then detected with a photomultiplier and processed to extract, store and display the required information. A 40 MHz laser, phase-locked to the ring radio frequency system, with a 50 ps pulse length, would be suitable for measuring the dynamics of the core of each of the LHC 2808 bunches in a time span much shorter than the synchrotron period. The same instrument could also monitor the evolution of the bunch tails, the presence of untrapped particles and their diffusion into nominally empty RF buckets ("ghost bunches") as required by the CERN specifications.

We report on development of a new storage ring operations tool for measurement of longitudinal beam density profile. The technique mixes synchrotron light with light from a mode locked solid-state laser oscillator in a non-linear crystal and detects the up-converted radiation with a photo-multiplier. The laser is phase locked to the storage ring RF system. The laser choices available for repetition frequency, pulse length and phase modulation give a very wide range of options for matching the bunch configuration of particular storage rings. Progress in the technology of solid-state lasers ensures this system can be made robust for routine use in storage ring operations. A very large number of important applications are possible including measurement of the fraction of untrapped particles prior to acceleration, the population of particles in the nominally unfilled RF buckets in a bunch train ("ghost bunches"), longitudinal tails, the diffusion of particles into the beam abort gap and the normal bunch parameters of longitudinal shape and intensity. We are currently investigating application to two devices: (1) the 1.9 GeV ALS electron storage ring at LBNL with 328 RF buckets, 2ns bucket spacing, 276 nominally filled bunches, 15-30ps rms bunch length and (2) the 7 TeV LHC proton collider under construction at CERN with 35,640 RF buckets, 2.5 ns bucket spacing, 2,808 nominally filled bunches, 280-620 ps rms bunch length. A proof of principle experiment is being conducted on ALS. The results of the ALS experiment and detailed analyses of the application to LHC and its requirements are described.