Christopher Mayes

Sara A. Miskovich, Willie Neiswanger, William Colocho et al.

Although beam emittance is critical for the performance of high-brightness accelerators, optimization is often time limited as emittance calculations, commonly done via quadrupole scans, are typically slow. Such calculations are a type of $\textit{multipoint query}$, i.e. each query requires multiple secondary measurements. Traditional black-box optimizers such as Bayesian optimization are slow and inefficient when dealing with such objectives as they must acquire the full series of measurements, but return only the emittance, with each query. We propose a new information-theoretic algorithm, Multipoint-BAX, for black-box optimization on multipoint queries, which queries and models individual beam-size measurements using techniques from Bayesian Algorithm Execution (BAX). Our method avoids the slow multipoint query on the accelerator by acquiring points through a $\textit{virtual objective}$, i.e. calculating the emittance objective from a fast learned model rather than directly from the accelerator. We use Multipoint-BAX to minimize emittance at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) and the Facility for Advanced Accelerator Experimental Tests II (FACET-II). In simulation, our method is 20$\times$ faster and more robust to noise compared to existing methods. In live tests, it matched the hand-tuned emittance at FACET-II and achieved a 24% lower emittance than hand-tuning at LCLS. Our method represents a conceptual shift for optimizing multipoint queries, and we anticipate that it can be readily adapted to similar problems in particle accelerators and other scientific instruments.

Auralee Edelen, Christopher Mayes

Particle accelerators support a wide array of scientific, industrial, and medical applications. To meet the needs of these applications, accelerator physicists rely heavily on detailed simulations of the complicated particle beam dynamics through the accelerator. One of the most computationally expensive and difficult-to-model effects is the impact of Coherent Synchrotron Radiation (CSR). As a beam travels through a curved trajectory (e.g. due to a bending magnet), it emits radiation that in turn interacts with the rest of the beam. At each step through the trajectory, the electromagnetic field introduced by CSR (called the CSR wakefield) needs to computed and used when calculating the updates to the positions and momenta of every particle in the beam. CSR is one of the major drivers of growth in the beam emittance, which is a key metric of beam quality that is critical in many applications. The CSR wakefield is very computationally intensive to compute with traditional electromagnetic solvers, and this is a major limitation in accurately simulating accelerators. Here, we demonstrate a new approach for the CSR wakefield computation using a neural network solver structured in a way that is readily generalizable to new setups. We validate its performance by adding it to a standard beam tracking test problem and show a ten-fold speedup along with high accuracy.