Automatic emittance measurement at the ATF

An automatic emittance measurement system to characterize the transverse emittance of the electron beam produced by the BNL photocathode electron gun is described. The system utilize a VAX workstation and a Spiricon beam analyzer. A operator window (created through the Vista control software package) controls the emittance measurement system and the graphic presentation of the results. Quadrupole variation method is used for the ATF automatic emittance measurement system. A simple emittance formula was derived to study the performance of the quadrupole variation method, and compared with the ATF experimental data is also presented.<>