Electron linacs in the 100 MeV to 25 GeV energy range have by now been in operation for periods ranging from one year to over 20 years. In 1951 the Mark III accelerator at Stanford became the first electron linac to exceed an energy of 100 MeV. Since then significant increases in maximum electron energy have been made by the h'Iark III (reaching an energy of 1 GeV in 1960) and SLAC (exceeding 2...

The Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists (COMP), in close partnership with the Canadian Partnership for Quality Radiotherapy (CPQR) has developed a series of Technical Quality Control (TQC) guidelines for radiation treatment equipment. These guidelines outline the performance objectives that equipment should meet in order to ensure an acceptable level of radiation treatment quality. The ...

The skyshine radiation phenomenon consists of the scattering of primary photon beams in the atmosphere above the roof of a medical linear accelerator facility, generating an additional dose at ground level in the vicinity of the treatment room. Thus, with respect to radioprotection, this situation plays an important role when the roof is designed with little shielding and there are buildings ne...

At present the super-conducting option of linear accelerators is considered for low energy, and new types of RF cavities are considered for this purpose. However, together with electrodynamics problems we should solve the transverse stability problem, since in structures with external focusing elements the focusing period is longer, and in higher accelerating field the defocusing factor increas...

While time-dependent electromagnetic fields using microwave technology have been exploited for decades in acceleration and manipulation of charged particle beams, modern lasers stand poised to be exploited for these purposes with great promise. The advent of compact sub-picosecond terawatt lasers has renewed the interest in phenomena that involve scattering or collective interaction of lasers w...

There is a great deal of interest in image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT), and to advance the state of IGRT, an integrated linear accelerator-magnetic resonance (linac-MR) system has been proposed. Knowledge of the radiofrequency (RF) emissions near a linac is important for the design of appropriate RF shielding to facilitate the successful integration of these two devices. The frequency spectra of...

The successful demonstration of PIAVE superconducting RFQ (SRFQ) resonator gives the opportunity of new applications, making possible the construction of compact CW accelerators, driven by small RF systems. In this paper, we outline the basic principles of SRFQ design, and discuss the possible applications to the acceleration of Exotic Ion beams and intermediate intensity proton beams for Posit...

Coherent THz pulses are being produced at several facilities using relativistic electrons from linear accelerators. The THz pulses produced at the Brookhaven accelerator have pulse energies exceeding 50 μJ and reach a frequency of 2 THz. The high repetition rate of the Jefferson Lab accelerator leads to an average THz power of 20 watts. Possible uses for these high power pulses are discussed. C...

This collection of notes and exercises is intended as a workbook to introduce the principles of microwave linear accelerators, starting with the underlying foundation in electrodynamics. We review Maxwell's equations, the Lorentz force law, and the behavior of fields near a conducting boundary. We go on to develop the principles of microwave electronics, including waveguide modes, circuit equiv...