A Study of Beam Alignment Based on Coupling Modes in Third Harmonic Superconducting Cavities at FLASH

Abstract: This paper presents a study of beam alignment in accelerating cavities based on beam-excited higher order modes (HOM). Among the transverse HOMs, dipole modes have the dominant contribution, and may have an adverse effect on the beam quality. Since they depend linearly on the transverse beam offset, their effect can be reduced by aligning the beam in the cavity. The study has been made on the four third harmonic superconducting cavities installed in the ACC39 module at FLASH. Modes with strong beam coupling were monitored while moving the beam and searching for the minimum excited HOM power.