Prize Recipient

Boris Podobedov
Brookhaven National Laboratory/Stanford University

"For an experimental study of the microwave instability in the SLC damping rings using a streak camera to correlate each event to the RF. The development of this sophisticated technique provides a powerful tool for the study of non-linear instabilities above threshold.
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Boris Podobedov received his MS degree in Physics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russia, in 1993. The same year he enrolled in a PhD. program at the department of Applied Physics at Stanford University, where he held a Research Assistantship at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. His thesis research, performed under the guidance of professor Robert Siemann, concentrated on experimental and theoretical studies of longitudinal beam dynamics in the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC) damping rings. Specifically, Boris studied the so-called "saw-tooth instability" which was a poorly understood phenomenon that occurred during operation of the SLC damping rings above some single bunch current threshold. To measure and understand the effect, Boris has developed novel instrumentation to resolve the instability-induced structure on ~cm long bunches. Measurements using both these diagnostics and a fast streak camera gave clues to the basic mechanism of the instability and allowed him to quantify the instability's effect on SLC performance. In addition to the experimental results Boris has worked out a number of theoretical results related to the general problem of coherent single bunch stability in storage rings.

Boris officially received his PhD. from Stanford University in January 2000. Since October 1999 Dr. Podobedov has held scientific staff appointments at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) Department of the Brookhaven National Laboratory. One of his major research activities has been the design and implementation of a fast digital feedback system to control electron beam orbit stability with micron level accuracy. The system has become operational at one of the NSLS rings. He is also working on possible upgrade options for the NSLS, and continuing with beam dynamics experiments in storage rings.

Robert Gluckstern (Chair), James Rosenzweig, Shyh-Yuan Lee (2000 Advisor) , Robert Ryne (Vice Chair), John Carey