Concepts and Limitations of Macroparticle Accelerators Using Travelling Magnetic Waves

摘要

The concept of an accelerator using a travelling magnetic wave acting on magnetized projectiles is discussed. Although superconductors have a high potential as projectile material, their low critical temperature makes them unsuitable. Among ferromagnetic materials dysprosium seems to be superior. For stable suspension and guidance a high conductivity, preferably superconducting, guide sheet is necessary. Magnetic field gradients of 10 exp 9 A/m exp 2 travelling at 10 exp 6 m/s should be achievable using present state-of-the-art components; resulting accelerations are greater than or equal to 500 km/s exp 2 . A linear accelerator for final speeds of 50 km/s needs a length of 2.5 km. Guidance forces sufficient to produce acceleration of 2 x 10 exp 6 m/s exp 2 allow circular accelerators of reasonable size to achieve hypervelocities for small (50 to 100 mg) projectiles. An accelerator of 170 m diameter would surpass the best results from light gas guns. Travelling waves suitable for accelerations of the order of 10 exp 4 m/s exp 2 can be produced without switching, by means of flux displacing rotors, easily adapted to circular accelerators. (ERA citation 06:009550)