Beam Size Reconstruction from Ionization Profile Monitors

Abstract

Ionization profile monitors (IPMs) are widely used in particle accelerators for fast diagnostics of high energy beams. Due to the space-charge effects and several other physical reasons, as well as due to instrumental effects, the measured IPM profiles can significantly differ from those of the beams. There are several empirical mathematical models commonly used for reconstruction of the beam profiles. Here we present a proper correction algorithm based on the space-charge dynamics of the secondaries in IPMs. We also demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed beam size reconstruction algorithm from experimentally measured profiles and discuss practical aspects limiting the IPM accuracy.