Measurement of the longitudinal and transverse impedance of kicker magnets using the coaxial wire method

Fast kicker magnets are used to inject beam into and eject beam out of the CERN SPS accelerator ring. These kickers are generally ferrite loaded transmission line type magnets with a rectangular shaped aperture through which the beam passes. Unless special precautions are taken the impedance of the ferrite yoke can provoke significant beam induced heating, even above the Curie temperature of ferrite. In addition the impedance can contribute to beam instabilities. In this paper different variants of the coaxial wire method, both for measuring longitudinal and transverse impedance, are briefly discussed in a tutorial manner and do's and don'ts are shown on practical examples. In addition we present the results of several impedance measurements for SPS kickers using the wire method and compare those results with theoretical models.