Illustration of bunch merge simulation in AGS
Following are examples of a 4 to 2 to 1 merge of proton bunches in AGS obtained by running the simulation code ags2mrg23. As the code runs, the user is prompted to enter several numbers. For these examples, RF harmonic number 12.0 is entered. An RF frequency of 4.453 913 448 73 MHz at this harmonic is entered. This gives proton G γ = 45.5. The merge simulation starts with a uniform distribution of unbunched protons. 2.0 eV-s is entered for the longitudinal emittance of the distribution. The code will recommend a voltage to capture the unbunched protons into 4 harmonic 12 buckets. A capture voltage of 0.0527 kV is recommended. 0.053 kV is entered. It is desirable to capture the protons as “adiabatically” as possible. Because of the long synchrotron period (372 ms), a capture time of 74,707 ms is recommended by the code. A shorter time, 10,000 ms, is entered to reduce the running time of the code. A 4 to 2 merge time of 37,353 ms is recommended by the code. 4000.0 ms is entered. A 2 to 1 merge time twice that of the 4 to 2 merge is recommended by the code. 8000.0 ms is entered. The code requests a “time fraction” FQMRG to be entered. This is a number (from 0.1 to 1.0) that determines the time at which data are recorded during the 4 to 2 merge. The number 0.5 is entered. This encodes the recording of data halfway through the 4 to 2 merge.