🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Apr14.213121.17723@lmpsbbs.mot.com> capurka@ssd.comm.mot.com (Tom Capurka) writes:
>Hello,
>I have a question about particle accelerators:  Why does there seem to be
>a terminal particle energy for a given particle, accelerator, related to
>the radius of the acclerator?  Is this because the radiation caused by
>the fact that the article is not in an inertial frame gets too large and
>approaches equilibrium state with the energy input?

Yes.

And this "bremsstrahlung" (literally 'braking-radiation') that arises from 
acceleration of the particle around a curve depends on mass.  Hence an 
electron synchrotron must have a larger radius than a proton synchrotron 
with the same energy.  

>Whatever the reason, is there any possibility that there exists
>a yet undiscovered trick around this so that one could have an SSC type
>acclerator (as far as particle energies are concerned) in a 1 meter box?

Highly unlikely.  What people are working on are compact linear 
accelerators (where this problem will not appear).  The effort is on  
the development of RF cavities that provide extremely high electric 
field gradients while maintaining good beam properties. 

>Sorry if this is too basic but a good library is far away and this may turn
>out to be more fun.

The best source is probably articles in Physics Today, where you can see 
nice color pictures of things like RF quadrupoles.  There was a cover story 
some years back and occaisional news stories about things like planned 
linear colliders.  Maybe one of the SLAC HEP-cats can add some to this. 
I think the former USSR was planning to build one at Serpukhov. 

--
J. A. Carr                                    |  "The New Frontier of which I  
jac@gw.scri.fsu.edu                           |  speak is not a set of promises
Florida State University  B-186               |  -- it is a set of challenges."
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute |   John F. Kennedy (15 July 60)