OVERVIEW

The course presents the state-of-art of particle accelerators presently in operation, describing their main features and the most important physical laws and technological limitations defining their performances.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course presents the state of the art of particle accelerators currently in use, describing their main characteristics and the main physical laws and technological limitations that determine their performance.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The various types of accelerators will be described to the students, along with the main features of the beams that every machine can deliver. The technological and physically intrinsic limitations of each typology will be analysed in detail, thus allowing the students to fully understand how the particle physics experiment are interfaced with the accelerators and how the particles beams are produced for medical purposes, material analyses, and other tasks. The main goal of the course is getting the best comprehension of the features characterising the accelerated beams, such as emittance, dispersion, luminosity and others, and the technological choices that allow for these results.

At the end of the lectures, the student will have the skills to properly identify and recognise the most important accelerators, with the best comprehension of the features of each type: the sudent will also be able to identify the most important parameters of each accelerator and its components, correlating them to the achievable beams with the machines themselves.

PREREQUISITES

Electromagnetism
Principles of special relativity
Principles of nuclear and subnuclear physics

TEACHING METHODS

The course is based on lectures (48 hours) normally held by the teacher. For selected topics, after an agreement with the students, it will be possible for them to be requested to prepare short presentations, which will be considered as a bonus for the final exam.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Definitions and aim of particle accelerators
Electrostatic accelerators and principles of special relativity
Accelerators with radio-frequencies, circular machines and synchronous particle
Radio-frequency cavities
Weak focusing
Mechanics of trajectories, Hamiltonian formalism and Liouville's theorem
Bending magnets, combined and separated functions
Beam optics: multipoles
Dispersion and emittance
Strong focusing
FODO cell and synchrotrons
Synchrotron oscillations
Resonances
Space charge effects
Beam cooling
An electron LINAC: CEBAF
A proton synchrotron: LHC
Extracted muon and neutrino beams: Fermilab and PSI
Beams for nuclear reactors and other applications

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

Conte - MacKay, An Introduction to the Physics of Particle Accelerators, World Scientific

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

ANDREA BERSANI (President)

STEFANIA FARINON

MATTEO DE GERONE (President Substitute)

LESSONS

LESSONS START

https://easyacademy.unige.it/portalestudenti/index.php?view=home&_lang=it

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The final exam will be an interview of the student on the whole course content. Facultatively the students will be allowed to prepare a short presentation on a selected topic, designed in agreement with the teacher.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The student will face an oral exam covering the whole content of the course: the exam will be an oral interview, and the student will have the possibility to present an essay on an argument related to the matter of the lectures. Some examples of the possible arguments, not exaustive, could be: specific accelerators, existing or planned, accelerators for specific tasks (energy, arts, medicine...), accelerator components (magnets, cavities, specific beam lines...)

FURTHER INFORMATION

Office hours for students
Bersani Andrea
Dipartimento di Fisica, L105 (primo piano), su appuntamento
0103356655
bersani@ge.infn.it

Students who have valid certification of physical or learning disabilities on file with the University and who wish to discuss possible accommodations or other circumstances regarding lectures, coursework and exams, should speak both with the instructor and with Professor Sergio Di Domizio (sergio.didomizio@unige.it), the Department’s disability liaison.