Three-step H charge exchange injection with a narrow-band laser

053501-1 This paper presents a scheme for three-step laser-based stripping of an H beam for charge exchange injection into a high-intensity proton ring. First, H atoms are converted to H0 by Lorentz stripping in a strong magnetic field, then neutral hydrogen atoms are excited from the ground state to upper levels by a laser, and the remaining electron, now more weakly bound, is stripped in a strong magnetic field. The energy spread of the beam particles gives rise to a Doppler broadened absorption linewidth, which makes for an inefficient population of the upper state by a narrow-band laser. We propose to overcome this limitation with a ‘‘frequency sweeping’’ arrangement, which populates the upper state with almost 100% efficiency. We present estimates of peak laser power and describe a method to reduce the power by tailoring the dispersion function at the laser-particle beam interaction point. We present a scheme for reducing the average power requirements by using an optical ring resonator. Finally, we discuss an experimental setup to demonstrate this approach in a proof-of-principle experiment.