Novel Straight Merger for Energy Recovery Linacs

One of the most critical design considerations for an energy recovery linac (ERL) is how to merge the injected bunch onto the linac axis with minimal beam degradation. All merger designs in established and upcoming machines involve significant bending of the injected beam – even using a so-called straight merger bends the injected beam several degrees. We propose a merger which reduces the bending of the injected beam by an order of magnitude. By passing both beams through a septum magnet followed by an rf separator cavity with a superimposed dipole magnetic field, the injected beam bends minimally within the cavity, while the recirculated beam bends to align with the linac axis. Here we describe the concept in detail and present simulation results to demonstrate the advantages of such a design, particularly for magnetized beams or minimal energy separation between the injected and recirculated beams. Measurements from an experiment at CBETA evaluating the beam dynamics of the rf separator are presented and compared with simulation results.