Excitation of Large Transverse Beam Oscillations without Emittance Blow-up using the AC-Dipole Principle

The so-called "AC-Dipole" principle allows the excitation of transverse oscillations to large (several sigma) excursions without emittance blow-up. The idea was originally proposed and tested at BNL for resonance crossing with polarized beams, using an orbit corrector dipole with an excitation frequency close to the betatron tune, hence "AC-Dipole". This method of beam excitation has several potential applications in teh LHC, such as phase advance and beta-measurements, dynamic aperture studies and the investigation of resonance strengths. The technique was recently tested in the CERN SPS using the transverse damper as an "AC-Dipole" providing the fixed frequency excitation. Results from this experiment are presented, along with an explanation of the underlying principle.