Ringing in the Pulse Response of Long and Wideband Coaxial Transmission Lines due to Group Delay Dispersion

In particle accelerators coaxial cables are commonly used to transmit wideband beam signals covering many decades of frequencies over long distances. Those transmission lines often have a corrugated outer and/or inner conductor. This particular construction exhibits a significant amount of frequency dependent group delay variation. A comparison of simulations based on theoretical models and S11 and S21 network analyzer measurements up to 2.5 GHz is presented. It is shown how the non-linear phase response and varying group delay leads to ringing in the pulse response and subsequent distortion of signals transmitted through such coaxial transmission lines.