Advanced Experimental Techniques for RF and DC Breakdown Research

Advanced experimental techniques are being developed to analyze RF and DC breakdown events. First measurements with a specially built spectrometer have been made with a DC spark setup [1] at CERN and will soon be installed in the CLIC 30GHz accelerating structure test stand to allow comparison between DC and RF breakdown phenomena. This spectrometer is able to measure the light intensity development during a breakdown in narrow wavelength bands in the visible and near infrared range. This will give information about the important aspects of the breakdown including chemical elements, temperature, plasma parameters and possibly precursors of a breakdown

Delayed Accumulation of H3K27me3 on Nascent DNA Is Essential for Recruitment of Transcription Factors at Early Stages of Stem Cell Differentiation

Recruitment of transcription factors (TFs) to repressed genes in euchromatin is essential to activate new transcriptional programs during cell differentiation. However, recruitment of all TFs, including pioneer factors, is impeded by condensed H3K27me3-containing chromatin. Single-cell and gene-specific analyses revealed that, during the first hours of induction of differentiation of mammalian embryonic stem cells (ESCs), accumulation of the repressive histone mark H3K27me3 is delayed after DNA replication, indicative of a decondensed chromatin structure in all regions of the replicating genome. This delay provides a critical “window of opportunity” for recruitment of lineage-specific TFs to DNA. Increasing the levels of post-replicative H3K27me3 or preventing S phase entry inhibited recruitment of new TFs to DNA and significantly blocked cell differentiation. These findings suggest that recruitment of lineage-specifying TFs occurs soon after replication and is facilitated by a decondensed chromatin structure. This insight may explain the developmental plasticity of stem cells and facilitate their exploitation for therapeutic purposes

Observation of Polarized Positrons from an Undulator-Based Source

An experiment (E166) at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) has demonstrated a scheme in which a multi-GeV electron beam passed through a helical undulator to generate multi-MeV, circularly polarized photons which were then converted in a thin target to produce positrons (and electrons) with longitudinal polarization above 80% at 6 MeV. The results are in agreement with Geant4 simulations that include the dominant polarization-dependent interactions of electrons, positrons and photons in matter

The Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) - 2018 Summary Report

The Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) is a TeV-scale high-luminosity linear $e^+e^-$ collider under development at CERN. Following the CLIC conceptual design published in 2012, this report provides an overview of the CLIC project, its current status, and future developments. It presents the CLIC physics potential and reports on design, technology, and implementation aspects of the accelerator and the detector. CLIC is foreseen to be built and operated in stages, at centre-of-mass energies of 380 GeV, 1.5 TeV and 3 TeV, respectively. CLIC uses a two-beam acceleration scheme, in which 12 GHz accelerating structures are powered via a high-current drive beam. For the first stage, an alternative with X-band klystron powering is also considered. CLIC accelerator optimisation, technical developments and system tests have resulted in an increased energy efficiency (power around 170 MW) for the 380 GeV stage, together with a reduced cost estimate at the level of 6 billion CHF. The detector concept has been refined using improved software tools. Significant progress has been made on detector technology developments for the tracking and calorimetry systems. A wide range of CLIC physics studies has been conducted, both through full detector simulations and parametric studies, together providing a broad overview of the CLIC physics potential. Each of the three energy stages adds cornerstones of the full CLIC physics programme, such as Higgs width and couplings, top-quark properties, Higgs self-coupling, direct searches, and many precision electroweak measurements. The interpretation of the combined results gives crucial and accurate insight into new physics, largely complementary to LHC and HL-LHC. The construction of the first CLIC energy stage could start by 2026. First beams would be available by 2035, marking the beginning of a broad CLIC physics programme spanning 25-30 years

A 12 kV, 1 kHz, Pulse Generator for Breakdown Studies of Samples for CLIC RF Accelerating Structures

Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) RF structures must be capable of sustaining high surface electric fields, in excess of 200 MV/m, with a breakdown (BD) rate below 3×10-7 breakdowns/pulse/m. Achieving such a low rate requires a detailed understanding of all the steps involved in the mechanism of breakdown. One of the fundamental studies is to investigate the statistical characteristics of the BD rate phenomenon at very low values to understand the origin of an observed dependency of the surface electric field raised to the power of 30. To acquire sufficient BD data, in a reasonable period of time, a high repetition rate pulse generator is required for an existing d.c. spark system at CERN. Following BD of the material sample the pulse generator must deliver a current pulse of several 10’s of Amperes for ~2 μs. A high repetition rate pulse generator has been designed, built and tested; this utilizes pulse forming line technology and employs MOSFET switches. This paper describes the design of the pulse generator and presents measurement results

Experience Operating an X-band High-Power Test Stand at CERN

CERN has constructed and is operating a klystron-based X-band test stand, called Xbox-1, dedicated to the high-gradient testing of prototype accelerating structures for CLIC and other applications such as FELs. The test stand has now been in operation for a year and significant progress has been made in understanding the system, improving its reliability, upgrading hardware and implementing automatic algorithms for conditioning the accelerating structures

Breakdown Studies for the CLIC Accelerating

Optimizing the design and the manufacturing of the CLIC RF accelerating structures for achieving the target value of breakdown rate at the nominal accelerating gradient of 100 MV/m requires a detailed understanding of all the steps involved in the mechanism of breakdown. These include surface modification under RF fields, electron emission and neutral evaporation in the vacuum, arc ignition and consequent surface modification due to plasma bombardment. Together with RF tests, experiments are conducted in a simple DC test set-up instrumented with electrical diagnostics and optical spectroscopy. The results are also used for validating simulations which are performed using a wide range of numerical tools (MD coupled to electrostatic codes, PIC plasma simulations) able to include all the above phenomena. Some recent results are presented in this pape

A One-Dimensional Particle-in-Cell Model of Plasma Build-Up in Vacuum Arcs

Understanding the mechanism of plasma build-up in vacuum arcs is essential in many fields of physics. A one-dimensional particle-in-cell computer simulation model is presented, which models the plasma developing from a field emitter tip under electrical breakdown conditions, taking into account the relevant physical phenomena. As a starting point, only an external electric field and an initial enhancement factor of the tip are assumed. General requirements for plasma formation have been identified and formulated in terms of the initial local field and a critical neutral density. The dependence of plasma build-up on tip melting current, the evaporation rate of neutrals and external circuit time constant has been investigated for copper and simulations imply that arcing involves melting currents around 0.5-1 A/mu m(2),evaporation of neutrals to electron field emission ratios in the regime 0.01 - 0.05, plasma build-up timescales in the order of similar to 1 - 10 ns and two different regimes depending on initial conditions, one producing an arc plasma, the other one not. Also the influence of the initial field enhancement factor and the external electric field required for ignition has been explored, and results are consistent with the experimentally measured local field value of similar to 10 GV/m for copper. (C) 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH \& Co. KGaA, Weinhei