Propagation of a relativistic charged particle beam through an air medium with conducting boundaries. Final report

Many propagation experiments involve firing a relativistic charged particle beam into a column of air bounded by the conducting walls of a drift tube. In this investigation, the extent to which the magnitude of the resulting return current and, hence, the stability of the propagating beam is affected by the presence of conducting boundaries. Maxwell's equations are employed to derive the appropriate wave equation. This equation is transformed into a diffusion equation which is numerically solved for various boundary parameters.