RF Control Modelling Issues for Future Superconducting Accelerators

The development of superconducting accelerators has reached a high level of maturity following the successes of ATLAS at Argonne, CEBAF at Jefferson Lab, the TESLA Test Facility at DESY and many other operational accelerators. As a result many new accelerators under development (e.g. SNS) or proposed (e.g. RIA) will utilize this technology. Covering all aspects from cw to pulsed rf and/or beam, non-relativistic to relativistic particles, medium and high gradients, light to heavy beam loading, linacs, rings, and ERLs, the demands on the rf control system can be quite different for the various accelerators. For the rf control designer it is therefore essential to understand these issues and be able to predict rf system performance based on realistic rf control models. This paper will describe the features that should be included in such models and present an approach which will drive the development of a generic rf system model.