Beam dynamics studies of the photo-injector in low-charge operation mode for the ERL test facility at IHEP

The energy recovery linac test facility (ERL-TF), a compact ERL-FEL (free electron laser) two-purpose machine, was proposed at the Institute of High Energy Physics, Beijing. As one important component of the ERL-TF, the photo-injector started with a photocathode direct-current gun has been designed. In this paper optimization of the injector beam dynamics in low-charge operation mode is performed with iterative scans using Impact-T. In addition, the dependencies between the optimized beam quality and the initial offset at cathode and element parameters are investigated. The tolerance of alignment and rotation errors is also analyzed.