Theoretical and experimental studies of the beam physics in the Duke FEL storage ring

The Duke electron storage ring is a dedicated driver for free electron lasers (FELs) whose operation requires the storage ring to have a large dynamic aperture and to provide an intense, low emittance beam. In this dissertation Lie algebraic methods are used to study the complex nonlinear dynamics in the storage ring. A novel arc design which compensates the second-order geometric aberrations and suppresses the third-order resonances is developed to enlarge the dynamic aperture. Using this new concept and others, the lattices of the Duke storage ring and its linac injector were completely redesigned.;The study of the dynamic aperture using symplectic tracking codes has demonstrated the high performance and robustness of the Duke storage ring lattice. The influences on the dynamic aperture due to imperfections and FEL insertion devices are studied. In the design storage ring lattice with both imperfections and an FEL, the transverse dynamic aperture exceeds the physical aperture and the energy dynamic aperture is larger than ;An advanced, reliable, and sophisticated control system is developed for the Duke storage ring using Experimental Physics and Industrial Control Systems (EPICS) as the underlying low level control and Tcl-Tk, a scripting language, as the tool for high level functional control.;The theoretical and simulation results of this dissertation were confirmed by the successful commissioning and operation of the storage ring and by the measured lattice and beam parameters. One-turn injection, beam storage, stacking using one kicker, and energy ramping from the injection energy to the design energy of 1.0 GeV were accomplished on the first attempt. Later, more than 100 mA of beam current was stored. All commissioning goals were accomplished by a very small team within six months. The measured performance of the storage ring has exceeded design specifications. The high performance of the storage ring provides a solid foundation for successful FEL operations in the future. A number of FEL projects, based on the results of this dissertation, are being developed. Future plans include the use of the Lie algebraic methods to study complex FEL dynamics.