Space Charge Compensation in Low Energy Beam Lines

The dynamics of a high intensity beam with low energy is governed by its space-charge forces which may be responsible of emittance growth and halo formation due to their non-linearity. In a low energy beam transport (LEBT) line of a linear accelerator, the propagation of a charged beam with low energy causes the production of secondary particles created by the interaction between the beam and the background gas present in the accelerator tube. This phenomenon called space-charge compensation is difficult to characterize analitically. In order to obtain some quantitative values to characterize the space-charge compensation (or neutralization), numerical simulations using a 3D PIC code have been implemented.