A Compact Transverse Deflecting System (Compact-TDS) designed for longitudinal electron bunch diagnostics in the femtosecond regime is presently undergoing commissioning at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). This technique, based on THz streaking using a resonator structure, demands a high level of electron beam controllability and stability at the micrometer scale. To meet these requirements, the linear accelerator FLUTE (Ferninfrarot Linac- Und Test-Experiment) has undergone major upgrades in 2023, incorporating a new RF system equipped with a klystron, RF photoinjector and solenoid magnet. In this contribution, we present first experiments conducted with the Compact-TDS at FLUTE, utilizing the upgraded RF setup.

In the upcoming compact STorage ring for Accelerator Research and Technology (cSTART), LPA-like electron bunches are only stored for about 100 ms, in which the equilibrium emittance will not be reached. Therefore, to measure parameters such as bunch profiles, arrival times and bunch current losses, bunch-resolved diagnostics are needed. The booster synchrotron of the KARA accelerator accepts pre-accelerated bunches from a racetrack microtron and accelerates them further over a 500 ms long energy ramp. As the KARA booster synchrotron has a similar circumference and injection energy as the cSTART storage ring, new bunch-by-bunch diagnostics developed there can be transferred to the cSTART project with minimal effort. Currently the diagnostic system of the booster is not designed for bunch-by-bunch diagnostics, thus after using the booster as a testbed for cSTART, such a system could be used permanently. At the booster synchrotron we use the picosecond sampling system KAPTURE-II to read-out a button beam position monitor and an avalanche photo diode at the synchrotron light port and compare the results with a commercial bunch-by-bunch system.

The Karlsruhe Research Accelerator (KARA) is a synchrotron light source user and test facility, operating at an electron beam energy ranging from 0.5 to 2.5 GeV. Performing optics measurements and comparing with the machine model promises an improved understanding of the lattice and the underlying beam dynamics. Horizontal and vertical turn-by-turn Beam Position Monitor data are acquired and used for performing optics measurements in this storage ring. The results of these studies are presented in this paper.

Reinforcement Learning (RL) has demonstrated its effectiveness in solving control problems in particle accelerators. A challenging application is the control of the microbunching instability (MBI) in synchrotron light sources. Here the interaction of an electron bunch with its emitted coherent synchrotron radiation leads to complex non-linear dynamics and pronounced fluctuations. Addressing the control of intricate dynamics necessitates meeting stringent microsecond-level real-time constraints. To achieve this, RL algorithms must be deployed on a high-performance electronics platform. The KINGFISHER system, utilizing the AMD-Xilinx Versal family of heterogeneous computing devices, has been specifically designed at KIT to tackle these demanding conditions. The system implements an experience accumulator architecture to perform online learning purely through interaction with the accelerator while still satisfying strong real-time constraints. The preliminary results of this innovative control paradigm at the Karlsruhe Research Accelerator (KARA) will be presented. Notably, this represents the first experimental attempt to control the MBI with RL using online training only.

The Karlsruhe research accelerator KARA offers a setup to measure the beam energy with resonant spin depolarization. The depolarization is excited by the stripline kickers of the bunch-by-bunch feedback system and the resonant frequency is measured via change in Touschek lifetime. Energy measurements with resonant spin depolarization are implemented as a standard routine in the control system and are used regularly to measure both the beam energy and the momentum compaction factor for different energies and optics regimes. Long-time experience with the setup, short polarization time, and variation options of beam energy in combination with much available beam time qualify KARA as a test facility for systematic studies. Such studies are of particular interest for future colliders designed for precision studies like FCC-ee, as resonant spin depolarization is known for its high accuracy. This contribution presents the resonant spin depolarization setup at KARA and selected results of recent measurement campaigns.

A Compact Transverse Deflecting System (Compact-TDS) designed for longitudinal electron bunch diagnostics in the femtosecond regime is presently undergoing commissioning at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). This technique, based on THz streaking using a resonator structure, demands a high level of electron beam controllability and stability at the micrometer scale. To meet these requirements, the linear accelerator FLUTE (Ferninfrarot Linac- Und Test-Experiment) has undergone major upgrades in 2023, incorporating a new RF system equipped with a klystron, RF photoinjector and solenoid magnet. In this contribution, we present first experiments conducted with the Compact-TDS at FLUTE, utilizing the upgraded RF setup.

A far-field electro-optical (EO) setup based on a balanced detection scheme has been set up to measure the coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) at the Karlsruhe Research Accelerator (KARA). To enable the readout with a spectrally decoded scheme (EOSD), a KALYPSO based line array camera sensitive to NIR operating at a readout rate of 2.7 MHz has been included in the set-up. In this contribution, measurement results with the KALYPSO based spectrometer in combination with a commercial THz emitter are presented.

The Karlsruhe Research Accelerator (KARA) is an electron storage ring for accelerator research and the synchrotron of the KIT light source at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). KARA features an electro-optical (EO) in-vacuum bunch profile monitor to measure the longitudinal bunch profile in single shot on a turn-by-turn basis using electro-optical spectral decoding (EOSD). A simulation procedure has been set up to evaluate its suitability as a beam instrumentation for the operation of the future electron-position collider FCC-ee. In order to assess the simulations, this contribution focuses on a comparison to EO sampling (EOS) measurements at KARA and a study on the heat load of the EO crystal due to the expected high bunch repetition rate envisioned for FCC-ee.

At the Karlsruhe Research Accelerator (KARA) facility, an electron beam is generated by a thermionic electron gun, pre-accelerated to 53 MeV by a microtron and then ramped up to 500 MeV in a booster synchrotron before being injected into the storage ring, where a final electron energy of 2.5 GeV is reached. Compared to a 2D camera, when using 1D photodetectors either directly at the synchrotron light port or after a fiber optics segment, the optic design goal is to maximize the optical intensity at the photo detector, rather than to keep spacial coherence. In this field of non-imaging optics the emitter, optical setup and sink can be modeled in the optical phase space, with the etendue being the conserved quantity and position and angle the independent variables. In this contribution we describe the synchrotron radiation emitted at a dipole in the KARA booster synchrotron and the imaging setup into an optical multimode fiber with this formalism and compare the results with measurements at the synchrotron light port of the booster synchrotron.

In the upcoming compact STorage ring for Accelerator Research and Technology (cSTART), LPA-like electron bunches are only stored for about 100 ms, in which the equilibrium emittance will not be reached. Therefore, to measure parameters such as bunch profiles, arrival times and bunch current losses, bunch-resolved diagnostics are needed. The booster synchrotron of the KARA accelerator accepts pre-accelerated bunches from a racetrack microtron and accelerates them further over a 500 ms long energy ramp. As the KARA booster synchrotron has a similar circumference and injection energy as the cSTART storage ring, new bunch-by-bunch diagnostics developed there can be transferred to the cSTART project with minimal effort. Currently the diagnostic system of the booster is not designed for bunch-by-bunch diagnostics, thus after using the booster as a testbed for cSTART, such a system could be used permanently. At the booster synchrotron we use the picosecond sampling system KAPTURE-II to read-out a button beam position monitor and an avalanche photo diode at the synchrotron light port and compare the results with a commercial bunch-by-bunch system.

The FCC-ee collider physics program requires a precise determination of the center-of-mass energy. The average energies of the two colliding beams can be measured by resonant depolarization (RDP) of polarized electron and positron bunches. The depolarization is achieved by an electromagnetic device, e.g., a strip line, excited at a sweeping frequency. Once the excitation frequency is equal to the spin precession frequency, which is directly proportional to the beam energy, the polarization is lost or reduced. At KARA the resonant frequency is routinely measured via the change of the Touschek lifetime. We report on an RDP beam measurement campaign at the Karlsruhe Research Accelerator (KARA), exploring how this technique could be applied at the FCC-ee. In particular, we examine the sensitivity of the inferred value of beam energy to various parameters, such as the depolarize scan speed, the scan direction, and the beam operation energy.

In times of climate change and with increasing challenges of the power grid stability due to unstable renewable energy sources, it is not sufficient to know the electric energy consumption of accelerator facilities. In order to optimize the operation of the research infrastructure in terms of stability, reliability and sustainability, the knowledge of the dynamics of energy consumers, and generators is mandatory. Since a few years, KIT's accelerator teams collaborate with its EnergyLab 2.0, Europe's largest research infrastructure for renewable energies, within the KIT test field for energy efficiency and grid stability of large-scale research infrastructures (KITTEN). At the research accelerators KARA and FLUTE a dense network of power meters, more than 100 sensors of different kind, operate to observe from individual components to infrastructural components and the central electricity distribution. With more than one year of data taking for most of the sensors, we are already able to quantify implemented energy-savings measures. In this contribution the findings of the installation and the first analysis and savings within the more than one year data taking will be presented.

This paper presents a study on the upgrade and modernization of the magnet power supplies of the KARA (Karlsruhe Research Accelerator) storage ring. The existing power supplies, which have been in operation for more than two decades, were facing obsolescence and operational limitations. To ensure the continued availability and reliability of the facility for the next decade and beyond, a comprehensive refurbishment was required. The project involved the replacement and upgrade of the power supplies for the dipole and sextupole magnets at KARA, as well as for the dipole and quadrupole magnets in the booster. A key aspect of this modernization effort beside an improvement in efficiency and stability is the migration from a custom control system to EPICS running embedded on the power supplies. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the motivations, goals, and technical aspects of the power supply modernization project as well as first measurements with the new power supplies and the project status.