Air-Cored Synchrotron

Abstract

THE air-cored synchrotron^1,2 appears to have a number of very attractive features, especially if only infrequent pulse operation is required, say, for cloud-chamber experiments, for in such a case the condensers provided to store the magnetic field energy can store perhaps twice as much as when used on alternating current. If, in addition, it proves possible to hold the electrons to a very narrow region so that the guide field is used efficiently, then energies in the 500-MeV. region seem attainable with condenser banks already available in physical laboratories. The upper limit of energy is then set by the deformation of the conductors under the mechanical forces, so that the total impulse becomes the relevant quantity. Thus it is important to use rapidly rising magnetic fields , and a condenser-coil system either nearly critically damped or incorporating a rectifier, so that a slowly damped train of oscillations do not add unnecessarily to the impulse handed on to the coil system. We are pursuing experiments which indicate that impulsive forces greatly in excess of the static ultimate strengths of the coil materials can be withstood.