About the collaboration
Introduction
This project aims to carry out an experimental programme to study the dynamical behaviour of proton beams in fixed-field alternating gradient (FFA) accelerators. One of the key elements of this work will be the first beam test of an FFA accelerator at high beam power. With analysis of the experimental results and comparison to detailed simulations, this project aims to demonstrate capability of the FFA to deliver high power beams. This programme will also provide valuable input into future design efforts of these accelerators for a wide variety of applications.
Who are we?
We are a community of accelerator experts from around the world including the UK, Japan and USA. The experimental work is carried out at the Institute for Integrated Radiation and Nuclear Science (KURNS) near Osaka, Japan (formerly known as KURRI - the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute).
What is this collaboration about?
Particle accelerators lie behind many advances in modern science, from developments in energy, nanotechnology, materials processing, drug design and delivery, cancer therapy, biotechnology, green technology, waste management and information technology - to contributing to fundamental scientific knowledge through machines like the LHC at CERN. The next generation of scientists will demand even more powerful machines that accelerate intense beams of fundamental particles like protons to almost the speed of light. The challenges are immense even after more than 30 years of research and technological development.
Recently, however, initiatives in Japan have led to the rebirth of an old, formerly impractical idea that now seems to offer great promise for the future. Such an accelerator could provide a compact machine for proton/ion treatment of cancerous tumours; it could be used to drive a nuclear reactor in a far safer way than ever before; and it offers hope for the next-generation of particle physicists looking to study the structure of matter beyond the recently discovered Higgs.
Proton and ion accelerators for cancer therapy rely on a detailed understanding of beam behaviour and careful techniques to control the particles on to the tumour at just the right treatment depth. The new type of accelerator, known by the acronym FFA, promises precisely the flexibility needed for such vital work. At the other extreme, the proton accelerators for future work in energy generation, materials and other sciences will require very powerful beams from 5-10 megawatts or beyond; so far only 1 megawatt is routinely reached by more conventional designs.
A lot of progress has been made in Japan during the last ten years, including technological breakthroughs which have made possible the construction and operation of the FFA idea. Further discoveries in the US and the UK have taken the theory forward and we now have an array of ideas that urgently need to be tested experimentally.
The FFA accelerators located at KURNS are currently the only machines in the world where such work could be carried out. During the periods when they are not in use for other purposes this collaboration aims to carry out an experimental programme to study the dynamical behaviour of proton beams in FFA structures.
The work will enable us to test our theories, benchmark our computer modelling codes as well as open up ideas for future research. Scientifically, the study could provide convincing evidence for the FFA idea, which is recognised in the accelerator community as showing great promise but is a relatively new or unproven technology in some respects. This work will help put FFAs on a par with other conventional accelerators and gain recognition for their wide range of applications.
What we hope to achieve
We hope to further our understanding of FFA accelerators and in particular high intensity effects in FFAs. We want to study the effects of space charge in these accelerators and understand the operation of these machines at high intensity.
Study the correspondence between simulation codes and benchmark basic machine properties and dynamics from analytical models and field map based tracking codes.