There are three damper systems necessary for controlling instabilities in the Tevatron. These include the longitudinal system, the narrowband transverse system, and the wideband transverse system.
The longitudinal system controls beam energy and time oscillations about some fixed reference. Most longitudinal focusing and control is provided by the high level RF system with the cavities and power amplifiers. The damper system provides perturbations on the main high level RF control signals which keep the beam stable. The timing and bunch length are measured with a stripline pickup located at F0, and the processing occurs in racks F0110 and F0111. The signals are then applied to the low level and high level RF controls for the Tevatron where they are required.
The transverse damper systems control the variations in the radial position of the beam, relative to some fixed orbit, which are not due to energy variations. The trasverse damper is a self contained system with its own processing, cavities and power amplifier. The position of the beam is measured with eight pickups located at E0. These measurements are processed in the E0 service building and applied to four stripline kickers. The only difference between the wideband damper system and the narrowband damper system is the low level processing.