  The Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR) was reconfigured in 2008 as a test
accelerator to investigate the physics of ultra-low emittance damping rings.
During the approximately 40 days/year available for dedicated operation as a
test accelerator, specialized instrumentation is used to measure growth and
mitigation of the electron cloud, emittance growth due to electron cloud,
intra-beam scattering, and ions, and single and multi-bunch instabilities
generated by collective effects. The flexibility of the CESR guide field optics
and the integration of accelerator modeling codes with the control system have
made possible an extraordinary range of experiments. Findings at CesrTA with
respect to electron cloud effects, emittance tuning techniques, and beam
instrumentation for measuring electron cloud, beam sizes, and beam positions
are the basis for much of the design of the ILC damping rings as documented in
the ILC-Technical Design Report. The program has allowed the Cornell group to
cultivate the kind of talent and expertise that will be absolutely essential to
the final engineering design, and commissioning of the damping rings for a
linear collider.
