S. L. Sheehy

The Advantages and Challenges of Helical Coils for Small Accelerators—A Case Study

Most of todays particle accelerators are used in industry or for medical applications, for example, in radioisotope production and cancer therapy. One important factor for these applications is the size of the accelerator, which ideally should be as small as possible. In this respect, fixed-field alternating-gradient accelerators (FFAGs) can be an attractive alternative, which combine the best features of conventional synchrotrons and cyclotrons: FFAGs deliver better performance than synchrotrons while retaining flexibility. Of particular interest are accelerators for protons of moderate energy (0.25-1 GeV) and light ions such as carbon (up to 400 MeV per nucleon), for example, for proton/carbon-ion charged particle therapy or potential future applications such as accelerator-driven subcritical reactors. Due to high magnetic rigidity, a compact machine can be only achieved by using high field superconducting magnets. A disadvantage of FFAGs is that the magnetic elements can be very challenging. Quite often, complicated multipole fields are required, in combination with stringent geometric constraints. In this paper, we demonstrate the advantages of helical coil technology by means of an accelerator for proton therapy.

Effects of alignment errors in proton non-scaling FFAG accelerators

Non-scaling FFAGs have gained interest in the past decade for their potential application to charged particle therapy using proton and ion beams. However, linear ns-FFAGs naturally cross betatron resonances throughout acceleration. With an acceleration cycle of thousands rather than tens of turns, we find that resonance crossing produces severe orbit distortion in a linear proton/ion ns-FFAG in the presence of alignment errors. To overcome this, the PAMELA (Particle Accelerator for MEdicaL Applications) lattice design avoids resonance crossing with a non-linear ns-FFAG design. This design is outlined and a comparative analysis of alignment tolerances presented.

Commissioning and first results of the Intense Beam EXperiment (IBEX) linear Paul trap

The Intense Beam Experiment (IBEX) is a linear Paul trap designed to replicate the dynamics of intense particle beams in accelerators. Similar to the S-POD apparatus at Hiroshima University, IBEX is a small scale experiment which has been constructed and recently commissioned at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK. The aim of the experiment is to support theoretical studies of next-generation high intensity proton and ion accelerators, complementing existing computer simulation approaches. Here we report on the status of commissioning and first results obtained.

Study of Resonance Crossing in Non-scaling FFAGs using the S-POD Linear Paul Trap

Experiments on EMMA have shown that with rapid acceleration a linear non-scaling FFAG can accelerate through several integer tunes without detrimental effects on the beam [1]. Proton and ion applications such as hadron therapy will necessarily have a slower acceleration rate, so their feasibility depends on how harmful resonance crossing is in this regime. A simple and useful tool to answer such fundamental questions is the Simulator of Particle Orbit Dynamics (S-POD) linear Paul trap (LPT) at Hiroshima University, which can be set up to simulate the dynamics of a beam in an FFAG. We report here results of experiments to explore different resonance crossing speeds, quantify beam loss and study nonlinear effects. We also discuss the implications of these experimental results in terms of limits on acceptable acceleration rates and alignment errors.