Studies of Impedance-related Improvements of the SPS Injection Kicker System

The injection kicker system for the SPS consists of sixteen magnets housed in a total of four vacuum tanks. The kicker magnets in one tank have recently limited operation of the SPS with high-intensity beam: this is due to both beam induced heating in the ferrite yoke of the kicker magnets and abnormally high pressure in the vacuum tank. Furthermore, operation with the higher intensity beams needed in the future for HL-LHC is expected to exacerbate these problems. Hence studies of the longitudinal beam coupling impedance of the kicker magnets have been carried out to investigate effective methods to shield the ferrite yoke from the circulating beam. The shielding must not compromise the field quality or high voltage behaviour of the kicker magnets and should not significantly reduce the beam aperture: results of these studies, together with measurements, are presented. In addition results of tests to identify the causes of abnormal outgassing are presented.