Vibration control in accelerators

Abstract

In the vast majority of accelerator applications, ground vibration amplitudes are well below tolerable magnet jitter amplitudes. In these cases, it is necessary and sufficient to design a rigid magnet support structure that does not amplify ground vibration. Since accelerator beam lines are typically installed at an elevation of 1-2m above ground level, special care has to be taken in order to avoid designing a support structure that acts like an inverted pendulum with a low resonance frequency, resulting in untolerable lateral vibration amplitudes of the accelerator components when excited by either ambient ground motion or vibration sources within the accelerator itself, such as cooling water pumps or helium flow in superconducting magnets. In cases where ground motion amplitudes already exceed the required jiter tolerances, for instance in future linear colliders, passive vibration damping or active stabilization may be considered.