Intensity effects in the formation of stable islands in phase space during the multi-turn extraction process at the CERN PS

The CERN PS utilises a Multi-Turn Extraction (MTE) scheme to stretch the beam pulse length to optimise the filling process of the SPS. MTE is a novel technique to split a beam in transverse phase space into nonlinear stable islands. The recent experimental results indicate that the positions of the islands depend on the total beam intensity. Particle simulations have been performed to understand the detailed mechanism of the intensity dependence. The analysis carried out so far suggests space charge effects through image charges and image currents on the vacuum chamber and the magnets iron cores dominate the observed behaviour. In this talk, the latest analysis with realistic modelling of the beam environment is discussed and it is shown how this further improves the understanding of intensity effects in MTE.