The wonderful world of electron accelerators
- CEBAF, Newport News, VA (United States)
Electrons provide clean interactions both for high energy physics (in e{sup +}e{sup {minus}} colliders) and nuclear physics (in fixed-target accelerators). However, even at only moderate energies (>1GeV), electrons challenge the accelerator builder, and so one finds that the needs of electron accelerators have pushed many accelerator concepts and technologies: most obviously the important breakthrough superconducting rf (srf) technology, but also rf generation, cavity design, manipulation of short bunches, special lattices, and vacuum chamber design. One also finds that the nuisance synchrotron radiation, tamed by the accelerator builder`s tricks, has become one of the most important applications of electron beams. Srf was proposed in the early 1960`s and tried with little success at first, was later pushed by large storage rings to some extent (LEP, HERA, Tristan), and has now been implemented on an unprecendented scale as the sole means of acceleration at CEBAF. Completed on cost and schedule, CEBAF is progressing in its commissioning and early operations phase according to plan. It has fostered key advances in srf, 2K cryogenics, and rf control, and has provided a technology basis for other accelerator applications of the future. One of these is TESLA, the TeV-scale linear accelerator project now in preliminary development centered at DESY. Another, for which industrial interest is quite high, is free-electron lasers with output adjustable through specific bands of interest in the infrared and the deep ultraviolet at average powers of 50 to 100kW. A third future possibility is intense proton beams, potentially useful for spallation neutron sources.
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-84ER40150
- OSTI ID:
- 374644
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9304297-; ISSN 0003-0503; TRN: 96:004080-0005
- Journal Information:
- Bulletin of the American Physical Society, Vol. 40, Issue 2; Conference: 1993 joint meeting of the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers, Washington, DC (United States), 12-15 Apr 1993; Other Information: PBD: Apr 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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