U.S. Particle Accelerator School
U.S. Particle Accelerator School
America's National School of Accelerator Science and Technology

Principles of Superconducting Linear Accelerators

Sponsors:

Northern Illinois University and UT-Battelle

Course Name:

Principles of Superconducting Linear Accelerators

Instructor:

Sang-ho Kim and Marc Doleans, Oak Ridge National Lab


Purpose and Audience
This one-week graduate-level course is aimed at accelerator physicists and engineers who want to learn the principles of Superconducting Linear Accelerators (SCL). Emphasis will be given on understanding and applying design concepts to determine and optimize basic parameters of SCLs for a variety of applications.

Prerequisites
Undergraduate electricity and magnetism, undergraduate mechanics, linear algebra and differential equations, familiarity with computers.

It is the responsibility of the student to ensure that they meet the course prerequisites or have equivalent experience.

Objectives
The course will focus on fundamental principles of superconducting linac and their design. Accelerator theory pertaining to SCL will be presented and applied to the design of several accelerator subsystems. Emphasis will be given to understand the multi-dimensional constraints that govern the design of an SCL and familiarize the students with the iterative process aimed at finding an adequate compromise between the various constraints. At completion of the course, students should be able to carry out the basic conceptual design of a SCL.

Instructional Method
The course will combine morning lectures, afternoon computer labs followed by daily homework assignment. Appropriate software to work through the design of accelerator subsystems will be provided.

Course Content
The lectures will cover the general principles of SCL including the use of popular computer codes (SUPERFISH* and TRACE3D**) to design and optimize simple SCLs, including accelerating lattice and superconducting radio frequency (SRF) accelerating structures. The course will cover basic beam transport theory including the description of beams, beam transport and acceleration, and how to apply codes to design an accelerator lattice. The course will also include basic electromagnetics design of SRF cavities, beam loading and other RF interactions in SRF cavities, and general considerations for cryomodules and cryogenics.

*J.H. Billen and L.M. Young, Poisson SUPERFISH, LA-UR-96-1834 (Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 2006)

**K.R. Crandall and D.P. Rusthoi, TRACE 2-D/3-D, LA-UR-97-886 (Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 2006)


Reading Requirements
(to be provided by the USPAS) “RF Linear Accelerators” (second edition) by Thomas Wangler, Wiley & Sons publishers. The material in the textbook will be used as a reference and will be accompanied by extra material written by the instructors, covering both accelerator theory and tutorials for the computer codes used in the course.

Credit Requirements
Students will be evaluated based on their performance: 35% homework, 35% computer lab sessions and 30% final exam.


Northern Illinois University course number: PHYSICS 790D - Special Topics in Physics - Beam Physics
Indiana University course number: Physics 671, Advanced Topics in Accelerator Physics
Michigan State University course number: PHY 963, "U.S. Particle Accelerator School"
MIT course number: 8.790, "Accelerator Physics"