Measurement and analysis of fast transient instabilities

A novel beam diagnostics technique to detect fast beam transient instabilities and glitches has been developed at National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II). Vertical spikes of beam size and centroid have been observed occasionally and randomly during high current operations. These spikes are believed to be caused by ion instabilities associated with vacuum activity localized in the ring. With the functionality of gated beam position monitor (BPM), the newly developed technique utilizes turn-by-turn (TBT) data to detect beam centroid glitches. Whenever one turn trajectory deviates from a predefined window, a global control event is generated to trigger an online TBT data acquisition. The data acquisition is synchronized for all BPMs around the ring. In the meantime, the bunch-by-bunch (BxB) data, which is acquired from a single dedicated feedback BPM, has also been collected for analyzing possible coupled bunch instabilities (CBI). In addition to CBI caused mainly by ion bursts, other types of fast transient motions, such as, the top-off residual disturbance and fast orbit disturbance, have been captured with the new tool. The sources of the glitches can be approximately localized with the synchronized TBT data from multiple BPMs around the ring.