PIC code simulations of the space-charge-dominated beam in the University of Maryland Electron Ring

Numerical simulations using the WARP particle-in-cell code are applied to study the evolution of the space-charge-dominated beam in the University of Maryland Electron Ring (1). The self-consistent simulations play a special role because the nonlinear nature of the dynamics mab;es accurate analytic predictions difficult. Simulations of a matched beam at the nominal design parameters show negligible degradation in beam quality after 10 turns. The role of lattice element nonlinearities on the beam evolution has been investigated An rms mismatch is shown to lead to bounded oscillations and an acceptable level of emittance growth. A mismatch in the dispersion function however, is shown to lead to a higher levels of emittance growth, and dispersion matching is currently under investigation.