Heavy ion beam transmission in the AGOR cyclotron

In the framework of the TRImP program initiated at the KVI in 2002, the AGOR cyclotron was used to accelerate low energy heavy ion beams up to a beam intensity (>=10^12 particles per second). Typical beam ions are: 206Pb accelerated to 8 MeV/amu and 20Ne accelerated to 25 MeV/amu. In the course of beam development for the experiments we observed that vacuum induced beam loss (and the subsequent feedback loop between beam intensity and vacuum degradation) reduces the achievable beam intensity and is a limiting factor in delivering these beams. The aim of the work presented in this thesis is to study the contributing factors to the beam loss mechanism especially the feedback loop and investigate possible methods of mitigation.