16–21 Aug 2026
Daejeon Convention Center
Asia/Seoul timezone

Demonstration of cavity field mapping by falling drops of liquid

FR1A006
21 Aug 2026, 10:10
20m
2F Grand Ballroom (Daejeon Convention Center)

2F Grand Ballroom

Daejeon Convention Center

Invited Talk (Invitation Only) MC4.A04: Low level RF FR1A - Invited Talks

Speaker

Lars Groening (GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research)

Description

Radio-frequency cavity field mapping is conventionally
performed by pulling a perturbing bead through the cavity
on a dielectric wire. Although well established, this procedure requires cavity-specific mechanics and can introduce
perturbations, vibration, and alignment errors. We demonstrate a compact wire-free alternative in which repeatable
liquid drops fall through the cavity under gravity. A photoelectric gate provides a timing reference, a vector network
analyzer records the transient phase perturbation, and a calibrated time-to-position relation converts each trace into a
field profile. The method completes a longitudinal scan in
less than 0.5 s and supports quasi-continuous monitoring at
about 2 Hz. Repeated measurements can be combined by
singular value decomposition to recover field distributions at
low signal-to-noise ratio. Measurements on a 36.136 MHz
three-gap buncher reproduce the simulated one- and twodimensional field patterns. Tests on a scaled ten-gap Alvareztype cavity resolve every accelerating gap despite a signal-tonoise ratio close to two. These results establish falling liquid
drops as practical perturbators for rapid cavity diagnostics
and tuning.

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Author

Xiaonan Du (GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research)

Co-author

Lars Groening (GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research)

Presentation materials