The interactions of surface damage and RF cavity operation

Studies of low frequency RF systems for muon cooling has led to a variety of new techniques for looking at dark currents, a new model of breakdown, and, ultimately, a model of RF cavity operation based on surface damage. We find that cavity behavior is strongly influenced by the spectrum of enhancement factors on field emission sites. Three different spectra are involved: one defining the initial state of the cavity, the second determined by the breakdown events, and the third defining the equilibrium produced as a cavity operates at its maximum field. We have been able to measure these functions and use them to derive a wide variety of cavity parameters: conditioning behavior, material, pulse length, temperature, vacuum, magnetic field, pressure, gas dependence. In addition we can calculate the dependence of breakdown rate on surface field and pulse length. This work correlates with data from Atom Probe Tomography. We will describe this model and new experimental data.