The Potential of an Ultimate Storage Ring for Future Light Sources

This paper is the report of the working group on Ultimate Storage Rings at the Department of Energy's Basic Energy Sciences Workshop on Physics of Future Light Sources, which took place in Gaithersburg, Maryland on September 15–17, 2009. In this report we address the accelerator design issues related to the next generation of storage ring light sources, deemed “ultimate” storage rings. In our estimation, storage rings have the potential to provide an increase in photon brightness and coherent flux that is two orders of magnitude above that projected for rings currently under construction. In addition to photon brightness and coherent flux, we discuss other directions, such as shorter pulses, tailored bunches, and partial lasing, in which rings could evolve. For the most part we envision ultimate storage rings as an evolutionary advance from existing rings that faces no fundamental technological obstacles. Nevertheless we identify several important areas of R&D that should be pursued to enable the realization of the full potential of ultimate ring light sources.