Abstract

Due to the presence of spin flip radiation electrons get polarized anti-parallel to the main bending magnet field. Polarization values close to the Sokolov-Ternov level of 92.4% are expected for the Swiss Light Source (SLS) storage ring at 2.4 GeV. Resonant excitation at the spin precession frequency depolarizes the electron beam. This frequency happens to be proportional to the average beam energy with a factor which only depends on the g-factor of the electron. The polarization level influences the beam lifetime due to the polarization dependent Touschek scattering process. A sudden change of polarization gives rise to a change of the loss rates. Thus a fast vertical kicker magnet driven by a frequency generator and a fast loss monitor are sufficient to carry out the energy calibration measurement.

In the first part of the thesis some predictions for the anticipated polarization level as well as for the desired kicker parameters and depolarization times are made. Experiments show that polarization values well above 80% can be achieved in the SLS storage ring.

In the second part of the thesis the energy calibration experiments carried out are described involving the readout of loss monitors and the control of a frequency generator driving a fast kicker magnet. The energy calibration experiments have shown that the SLS storage ring operates at an actual beam energy of $(2.4361\pm 0.00018$) GeV which is 1.5% higher than the design energy! This large discrepancy remains to be explained in further experiments.