Control of Coherent Instabilities by Linear Coupling

One of the main challenges in the design of high-energy colliders is the very high luminosity necessary to provide significant event rates. This imposes strong constraints to achieve and preserve beams of high brightness, i.e. intensity to emittance ratio, all along the injector chain. Amongst the phenomena that can blow up and even destroy the beam are transverse coherent instabilities. Two methods are widely used to damp these instabilities. The first one is Landau damping by non-linearities. The second consists in using an electronic feedback system. However, non-linearities are harmful to single-particle motion due to resonance phenomena, and powerful wideband feedback systems are expensive. It is shown in this paper that linear coupling is a further method that can be used to damp transverse coherent instabilities. The theory of collective motion is outlined, including the coupling of instability rise and damping rates, chromaticity and Landau damping. Experimental results obtained at the CERN PS are reported, which are important for its role as LHC injector. Stabilisation by coupling explains (at least in part) why existing high intensity accelerators and colliders work best when adjusted relatively close to a coupling resonance. This method could be profitably used in the design of new machines.