Synchrotrons - doe-hdbk-1108-2002

DOE-HDBK-1108-2002

Radiological Training for Accelerator Facilities

Instructor's Guide

Lesson Plan

Notes

Operation

In the cyclotron, magnets guide the particle along a spiral path,

allowing a single electric field to apply many cycles of

Prototype

Soon unprecedented energies were achieved, and the steady

improvement of Lawrence's simple machine has led to today's

synchrotrons, whose endless circular flight paths allow

particles to gain huge energies by passing millions of times

through the electric fields that accelerate them.

Synchrotrons

A synchrotron accelerates particles using electric fields over and over

in a circular path. Magnetic fields are used to bend the particles'

trajectories and keep them moving in a circle. The accelerated particles

lose energy rounding the curves, so energy must be continuously

supplied. The beam is extracted heading toward targets and detectors.

Colliders

Until 30 years ago, all accelerators were so-called fixed-target

machines in which the speeding particle beam was made to hit a

stationary target of some chosen substance.

In the early 1960s, physicists had gained enough experience in

accelerator technology to be able to build colliders in which two

carefully controlled beams are made to collide with each other at a

chosen point. The beams for colliders may come from two

synchrotrons or two linear accelerators.