Talk:Linear particle accelerator

Capitalization consistency

Should linac be capitalized or not, like laser? I vote uncapitalized but would like further input before changing the rest of the page. For reference, papers currently published in Nature use linac uncapitalized. Blablabliam (talk) 21:04, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Types of accelerators

This section should be removed, or at least modified. There is a particle accelerator page for that general information. Electrostatic accelerators are not linacs, so this information must be removed as it is irrelevant to linacs. In fact, Lawrence's idea for the cyclotron published in 1930 was based on Wideroe's 1928 linac design publication. For an accelerator to be a linac, it must use electric field resonance cavities controlled by an rf-source, not an electrostatic accelerator (ie: going in a line doesn't make it a linac). DAID (talk) 09:55, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

With one year of no response, I have now removed this section. Below I paste its original contents before removal, in the case that someone likes a record of what was removed. The main reason for removal is this is material should be covered in the general accelerator page, not the linear accelerator page. Linear accelerators only use RF-cavities, and the description of RF cavities in the removed content is not correct. The image will be kept and shifted to another section in the article. DAID (talk) 03:09, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

(Archive below)

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The Stanford superconducting linear accelerator, housed on campus below the Hansen Labs until 2007. This facility is separate from SLAC

The acceleration of the particles can be made with three general methods:

• Electrostatically: The particles are accelerated by the electric field between two different fixed potentials. Examples include the Van de Graaf, Pelletron and Tandem accelerators.
• Induction: A pulsed voltage is applied around magnetic cores. The electric field produced by this voltage is used to accelerate the particles.
• Radio Frequency (RF): The electric field component of radio waves accelerates particles inside a partially closed conducting cavity acting as a RF cavity resonator. Examples include the travelling wave, Alvarez, and Wideroe cavity type accelerators.

This

This article needs to be cleaned up. There is confusion as to the distiction between an electrostatic type Linear Accelerator and a RF based "Linac". Both types of accelerator should be covered in the article, but at the moment there is a confused mess as to which one is being talked about in each section. Martyman 04:31, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

There seems to be a large number of people editing these articles but no-one has commented on my suggestion here. Do people agree that linear accelerators include non-rf machines? --Martyman-(talk) 00:13, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

There should be a headline for the actual explaination how the LINAC works, not just "A linear particle accelerator consists of the following elements". It can be irritating. 16:00, 15 December 2005 (GMT)

medical linacs

need a mention. they are most common type of linac. Andybuckle 16:01, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

explain...

"Medical grade LINACs accelerate electrons using a complex bending magnet arrangement and a 6-30 million..." Once the particles are forced into a magenetic field whose force field is not along the kinteic vector syncroton radition is unavoidable.....where's the mistake?Slicky 08:32, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Advantages

Under this heading it is said: '"LINACs of appropriate design are capable of accelerating heavy ions to energies exceeding those available in ring-type accelerators, which are limited by the strength of the magnetic fields required to maintain the ions on a curved path."'

This cannot be correct as the highest energy heavy ion accelerators are circular (e.g. Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider).

The advantage of a linear accelerator for heavy ions is not so obvious. It is more of a question why not use other accelerator types. Assuming the beam comes from a source (with an electrostatic accelerator, to what will still be a very low energy or velocity)

• Sychrotron: You would need a very weak magnetic field to bend the beam, or would need to use a small synchrotron. Then the first accelerator stage would change the energy so much that the bending radius for the magnets would be wrong. When the beam arrived at the initial injection point, you would have to stop injecting. In this case you would not have collected much beam.
• Race track or recirculating Linac: The ions are too slow to arrive to the relativistic speed necessary to use this type of accelerator.
• Cyclotron: This would work very well, and it is unclear why a linear accelerator should be used agains a cycltoron.

Scaler1112 08:19, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Minimum Size

Cathode Rap Tubes do not have a fixed size and therefore I think they should not be used as a unit of measure when talking about the size of the smallest LINACs. 173.162.245.217 (talk) 18:30, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Weaponry or proposed weaponry

"The possibility of developing a ray gun weapon employing a linear electron accelerator came under consideration, and plans for feasibility studies were completed. Contract negotiation for a feasibility study began in the second quarter of FY 1962. A $59,000 contract with General Electric was being completed at the close of the year. Meanwhile, a subsidiary study covering radiation changes in organic structures was already under way through a contract with Melpar"42

1. 42 NDL Review & Analysis, Apr - Jun 62, Secret Supplement, pp 3 - 40

From:

• Summary of Major Events and Problems (Fiscal Year 1961-62, June 1962) PAGE 134
• Summary of Major Events and Problems (all)

Johnvr4 (talk) 18:22, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Needs elementary explanation

I don't want to criticize the good work that has been done on this article, but the introductory section, Construction and operation is too complicated for general readers to understand how it works. The article needs a simple "How it works" section with an elementary explanation. --Chetvorno^TALK 20:33, 27 May 2015 (UTC)