Status of Negative Momentum Compaction Operation at KARA

For future synchrotron light sources different operation modes are of interest. Therefore various modes are currently being tested at the Karlsruhe Research Accelerator (KARA) including optics for a negative momentum compaction factor. These optics have been calculated and are under commissioning at KARA. Additionally, studies about expected collective effects in this regime are being performed, including the head-tail and microbunching instabilities. In this contribution we will present the status of operation in the negative momentum compaction regime and discuss expected collective effects that will be studied in this context