Differentiable self-consistent space-charge simulation for accelerator design

Abstract: The nonlinear space-charge effects in a high intensity or high brightness accelerator can have a significant impact on the beam properties through the accelerator. These effects are included in the accelerator design via self-consistent multi-particle tracking simulations. In order to study the sensitivity of the final beam's properties with respect to the accelerator design parameters, one has to carry out the time-consuming space-charge simulation multiple times. In this paper, we propose a differentiable self-consistent space-charge simulation model that enables the study of the beam sensitivity through only one simulation. Such a model can also be used with gradient-based numerical optimizers for accelerator design optimizations including the self-consistent space-charge effects.