Disruption and luminosity of flat beams

It has been suggested (ref.1) that high energy linear colliders might operate with non-round beam profiles, i.e. with different sigma/sub x/ and sigma/sub y/, described by an aspect ratio R = sigma/sub y/sigma/sub x/. The advantage of flat beams is the expectation, that ''beamstrahlung'', i.e., beam-beam synchrotron radiation is reduced with increasing R. The reason for this reduction comes from the fact that for constant bunch area and therefore constant luminosity the mean physical distance between the particles increases with R. When the physical distances are larger, the electromagnetic fields and therefore particle acceleration and radiation decrease. This would be of particular importance for very large linear colliders (VLC), where beamstrahlung may consume an appreciable fraction of the incident energy. The underlying assumption is that the emittance quality can be preserved in the deformed bunch. 4 refs., 3 figs., 3 tabs.