Space charge can lead to emittance and/or energy exchange known as “equipartitioning issue” in linacs, or space-charge coupling in high-current synchrotrons. It is described here as an internal resonance driven by the self-consistent space-charge potential of coherent eigenmodes. By a detailed comparison of analytical theory with 2D particle-in-cell simulation for Kapchinskij-Vladimirskij (KV) and waterbag distributions, we discuss characteristic features of this resonance mechanism in the vicinity of the symmetric focusing resonance band—for practical purposes, the most important case—and discuss the applicability of the linearized KV theory.

• Received 2 March 2001

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.034802