Dynamics of mode competition in a gigawatt-class magnetically insulated line oscillator

Abstract

An axial mode competition is observed in a 1GHz magnetically insulated line oscillator operating at gigawatt power level with a pulse duration of 130ns. A fast-growing axial mode adjacent to desired π-mode starts up first and hops to the slow-growing and stable π mode. The dynamics of the mode competition is found to be strongly dependent on the time-varying axial velocity of the magnetically insulated electron beam. The experimental observation is verified by the particle-in-cell simulation using a time-frequency analysis.