LINAC2026 - 33rd Linear Accelerator Conference

ESS Beam Current Monitor System: Technical Challenges and Improvements from Seven Years of Operation

Not scheduled

2h

Daejeon Convention Center

Poster Presentation MC4.A01: Beam diagnostics Poster Session

Speaker

Hooman Hassanzadegan (European Spallation Source)

Description

With the restart of beam commissioning activities at the European Spallation Source (ESS) in January 2026, the Beam Current Monitor (BCM) system has been in operation for more than seven years. During this period, several beam monitoring and machine protection functions have been added to the system, including beam mode and destination consistency checks, as well as differential beam loss measurements. The overall system accuracy is about 0.1%, requiring reliable analog signal transmission over long cables, low-noise electronics and fast digital signal processing. These aspects are particularly important to minimize the impact of electromagnetic interference (EMI) from RF and other high-power pulsed equipment, thereby improving beam availability. This paper presents an overview of the ESS BCM functions, the technical challenges encountered during beam commissioning, and the solutions implemented to improve system performance and availability.