HOMs of the SRF Electron Gun Cavity in the BNL ERL

The Brookhaven Energy Recovery Linac (ERL) is operated as an R&D test bed for high-current, low emittance electron beams. It comprises a superconducting five-cell cavity and a half-cell superconducting RF photo-injector electron gun. The ERL is undergoing commissioning with focus on the performance of the electron gun, not the least on the cavity Higher Order Modes (HOM). Among the various alternative solutions, a beam tube damper based on a layer of ferrite tiles was adopted for the five-cell accelerator cavity. For the gun, a ceramic-ferrite damper consisting of a lossless ceramic cylinder surrounded by damping ferrite tiles has been investigated. This design is innovative in its damper approach and combines a variety of goals including broadband HOM damping and protection of the superconducting cavity vacuum from potential damage by the separately cooled absorber. In this paper the empirical performance of an installed ceramic-ferrite damper is described by the Q reduction of a few selected gun cavity resonances. The theoretical coupling impedance presented to a traversing beam is numerically analyzed in terms of radial waveguide modes in the damper section. Strong damping of the gun cavity HOMs by the fundamental power coupler (FPC) is found and discussed. Finally, the measured Q-values of the operational gun cavity without the ceramic-ferrite damper at superconducting temperatures are presented.