Implementation of RF Channeling at the CERN PS for Spill Quality Improvements

Resonant slow extraction from synchrotrons aims at providing constant intensity spills over timescales much longer than the revolution period of the machine. However, the extracted intensity is undesirably modulated by noise on the machine’s power converters with a frequency range of between 50 Hz and a few kHz. The impact of power converter noise can be suppressed by exploiting a Radio Frequency (RF) technique known as empty bucket channelling, which increases the speed at which particles cross the tune resonance boundary. In this contribution the implementation of empty bucket channelling in the CERN Proton Synchrotron (PS) is described via simulation and measurement. The technique was tested with both a resonant RF cavity and an inductive Finemet cavity, which can produce non-sinusoidal waveforms, to significantly reduce the low frequency noise observed on the extracted spill.