Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-shared-by-prelims-and-parts-a-and-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2018/s19/3/a/solution

Let the bunch tail have the higher energy so that it catches the head. For an ultrarelativistic proton, . A drift of length then changes the bunch length by approximately . Requiring that to match the initial length gives
Taking , , and the given lengths yields , about . Treating GeV as kinetic rather than total energy changes that by only a few percent.
This is the linear ballistic compression requirement; a real finite-emittance bunch, nonlinear velocity-energy relation, uncorrelated energy spread and collective fields prevent exact zero length. The chirp is a correlated full head-to-tail spread, not automatically an rms energy spread.

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