Demonstration of two-beam acceleration in CTF II

The second phase of the Compact LInear Collider (CLIC) Test Facility (CTF II) at CERN has demonstrated the feasibility of two-beam acceleration at 30 GHz using a high-charge drive beam, running parallel to the main beam, as the RF power source. To date accelerating gradients of 59 MV/m at 30 GHz have been achieved. In CTF II, the two beams are generated by 3 GHz RF photo-injectors and are accelerated in 3 GHz linacs, before injection into the 30 GHz modules. The drive beam linac has to accelerate a 16 ns long train of 48 bunches, each with a nominal charge of 13.4 nC. To cope with the very substantial beam-loading special accelerating structures are used (running slightly off the bunch repetition frequency). A magnetic chicane compresses the bunches to less than 5 ps fwhm, this is needed for efficient 30 GHz power generation. The 30 GHz modules are fully-engineered representative sections of CLIC, they include a 30 GHz decelerator for the drive beam, a 30 GHz accelerator for the main beam, high resolution BPM’s and a wire-based active alignment system. The performance achieved so far, as well as the operational experience with the first accelerator of this type, are reported.