Advanced RF power sources for linacs

In order to maintain a reasonable over-all length at high center-of-mass energy, the main linac of an electron-positron linear collider must operate at a high accelerating gradient. For copper (non-superconducting) accelerator structures, this implies a high peak power per unit length and a high peak power per RF source, assuming a limited number of discrete sources are used. To provide this power, a number of devices are currently under active development or conceptual consideration: conventional klystrons with multi-cavity output structures, gyroklystrons, magnicons, sheet-beam klystrons, multiple-beam klystrons and amplifiers based on the FEL principle. To enhance the peak power produced by an rf source, the SLED rf pulse compression scheme is currently in use on existing linacs, and new compression methods that produce a flatter output pulse are being considered for future linear colliders. This paper covers the present status and future outlook for the more important rf power sources and pulse compression systems. It should be noted that high gradient electron linacs have applications in addition to high-energy linear colliders; they can, for example, serve as compact injectors for FEL`s and storage rings