Recent Developments and Operational Status of the Compact ERL at KEK

Abstract

The Compact Energy Recovery Linac (cERL) at KEK is a test accelerator in order to develop key components to realize remarkable ERL performance as a future light source. After the beam commissioning in December 2013, the legal current limit has been increased step-by-step like 1 uA, 10 uA, and 100 uA. Survey for the source of beam losses has been conducted in each step, and the study on beam dynamics and tuning has also been carried out. As a next step, 1 mA operation is scheduled in February 2016. In parallel to the increase in beam current, a laser Compton scattering (LCS) system which can provide high-flux X-ray to a beamline has been successfully commissioned. We report recent progress in various kinds of beam tuning: improvement of electron gun performance, high bunch charge operation, mitigation of beam losses, LCS optics tuning and bunch compression for THz radiation