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 / 2 / c / Solution

Express temperatures as energies $\Theta =k_{B}T$. A longitudinal cathode-energy spread of order ${\Theta }_c$ remains of that order during an ideal common electrostatic acceleration. At final mean speed $v_0$, a small energy spread produces $\delta v_{\parallel }\simeq \delta E/(m_e{v}_0)$. In the accompanying beam frame, the corresponding random kinetic-energy scale isThe last equality uses the nonrelativistic acceleration energy $E_e=m_e{v}_0^2/2$. This is the approximate temperature convention supplied in the hint; exact numerical factors depend on the emitted distribution and the definition of spread. At $50$ keV, relativistic corrections are modest but not strictly zero.

Electrostatic acceleration narrows longitudinal velocity spread relative to the fast mean beam even though it does not remove each electron's transverse cathode motion. In ideal magnetized cooling, slow proton motion couples to the electron guiding-centre dynamics, making this very small longitudinal spread relevant to the attainable ion temperature. Practical voltage ripple, space charge, alignment errors and ion heating can set much larger limits.