Performance and upgrade of the DAFNE beam test facility (BTF)

The DAFNE beam test facility has been delivering electron/positron beams to user groups since Oct. 2002. The test-beam has been active for more than two years, delivering beam time to a large number of experimental setups in many different conditions, ranging from typical detector calibration to fundamental measurements in nuclear physics. During this period several detectors were developed in order to characterize the beam quality in a wide range of beam intensities (from 1 to 10/sup 10/ particles/pulse) and energies (50-750 MeV). The large use of the facility has pushed us to upgrade it in order to improve the duty cycle, presently limited by the frequent beam injection in the DAFNE main rings. A review of the results obtained, the diagnostic tools developed as well as the upgrade of the facility are presented.