Experimental nonlinear beam dynamics studies with turn-by-turn phase space monitors

This thesis presents an experimental study of single particle and collective beam dynamics undertaken by the author in SPEAR electron storage ring. The technique used for measurement consists of exciting transverse oscillations of a bunch circulating in the ring with a fast kicker and observing the center of mass oscillations every turn for several thousand turns. The goal of this study was to develop new applications of the turn-by-turn technique to accelerator diagnostics. One innovation introduced is the use of a collective mode of the beam motion as a phase space probe. When in this mode the bunch behaves similar to a macroparticle and oscillates coherently. It is possible to control the growth/damping rate of this oscillation by adjusting the accelerator parameters. Another new tool proposed is the analysis of phase space trajectories in the time-frequency domain. This technique makes it possible to conduct nonlinear dynamics experiments such as observation of high order resonances in the frequency map and single-kick measurement of the tune dependence on the amplitude of oscillations.