Beam dynamics studies for a 3½ cell superconducting RF photo injector operating at low and high bunch charge

This paper presents the results of electron beam tracking simulations with the ASTRA code for the 3½ cell superconducting RF gun at the Forschungszentrum Dresden-Rossendorf. The SRF gun will improve the quality of the electron beam parameters for the ELBE superconducting electron linear accelerator. The ELBE electron accelerator is a general purpose facility for secondary radiation production. The facility produces x-rays, gamma-rays, neutrons, positrons and IR FEL radiation. The SRF gun will run in two operation modes with different repetition rates and bunch charges of the pulsed electron beam. The commonly used ELBE mode will operate with electron bunches with 13 MHz repetition rate and a bunch charge of about 77 pC with a maximal average current of 1 mA. The high charge mode with 500 kHz repetition rate and a bunch charge up to 1 nC will be used to generate neutrons by inducing nuclear reactions. For the future BESSY Soft X-ray FEL a bunch charge of about 2.5 nC is required. For these operation modes of the SRF gun preferential operation parameters are determined by the results of beam dynamics studies.