Impact of Rapid Acceleration on Beam Dynamics in the Rapid-Cycling Synchrotrons of a Muon Collider

Abstract

Circular muon colliders offer a promising route to multi-TeV centre-of-mass energies with high luminosity. The baseline design for the high-energy complex includes a chain of four Rapid-Cycling Synchrotrons (RCSs) accelerating the beam from \qty{63}{\GeV} to \qty{5}{\TeV}. The chain combines a conventional synchrotron with three hybrid synchrotrons, which use fixed-field superconducting dipoles and rapidly ramped normal-conducting dipoles. The short muon lifetime (\qty{2.2}{\micro\second} in the rest frame) imposes stringent constraints on the acceleration process: achieving the target luminosity requires a muon survival rate of up to \qty{70}{\percent} throughout the acceleration chain, with the full acceleration completed in approximately \qty{10}{\milli\second}. These demanding acceleration conditions raise several beam-dynamics challenges, investigated in this work. First, the impact of the RF cavity distribution on transverse emittance growth is studied. Second, the mismatch between the discretely increasing beam energy and the continuously ramped fields of the pulsed dipoles and quadrupoles is modelled analytically, and its impact is evaluated through tracking simulations. Finally, the sensitivity of the beam trajectory, optical functions, and emittance growth to magnetic-field ramp jitter is assessed.