EXPERIMENTS ON FORMING INTENSE RINGS OF ELECTRONS SUITABLE FOR THE ACCELERATION OF IONS

Electrons were injected from a 3.3-MeV 300-A accelerator into a circular orbit in a pulsed magnetic field. Trapped ring currents of 150 A (4 x 10{sup 12} electrons) were magnetically compressed from 19 cm to 3.5 cm radii and simultaneously accelerated from 3.3 MeV to 18 MeV in energy. The rms dimensions of the cross section of the ring after compression were a = 2.3 {+-} 0.2 mm radially and b = 1.6 {+-} 0.2 mm axially. The lifetime of the ring was typically 5.5 msec, and was determined by the decay of the magnetic field after compression. This lifetime could be decreased by the addition of hydrogen gas, indicating the focusing effect of the trapped positive ions.