First Observations of a "Fast Beam-Ion Instability"

We report the results of experiments on a "fast beam-ion instability" at the Advanced Light Source (ALS). This ion instability, which can arise even where the ions are not trapped over multiple beam passages, will likely be important for many future accelerators. In our experiments, we filled the ALS storage ring with helium gas, raising the pressure approximately two orders of magnitude above the nominal value. With gaps in the bunch train large enough to avoid conventional (multi-turn) ion trapping, we observed a factor of 2-3 increase in the vertical beam size along with coherent beam oscillations. The single-pass nature of this instability was demonstrated.