Effects of electron-cyclotron instabilities on gyrotron beam quality

A two-dimensional PIC code aimed at the investigation of electron-cyclotron beam instabilities in gyrotrons and their effects on the beam quality is presented. The code is based on recently developed techniques for handling charge conservation and open boundaries. It has been implemented on the massively parallel computer CRAY T3D. First results show an electromagnetic backward-wave instability periodically growing and decaying to energy levels close to those obtained from the electrostatic Bernstein wave instability. On the average, the resulting beam degradation is 3 to 4 times larger than that predicted by electrostatic models.