Experimental results in laser acceleration of protons and ions and theoretical predictions that the currently achieved energies might be raised by factors 5-10 in the next few years have stimulated research exploring this new technology for oncology as a compact alternative to conventional synchrotron based accelerator technology. The emphasis of this paper is on collection and focusing of the laser produced particles by using simulation data from a specific laser acceleration model. We present a scaling law for the ''chromatic emittance'' of the collector-here assumed as a solenoid lens-and apply it to the particle energy and angular spectra of the simulation output. For a 10 Hz laser system we find that particle collection by a solenoid magnet well satisfies requirements of intensity and beam quality as needed for depth scanning irradiation. This includes a sufficiently large safety margin for intensity, whereas a scheme without collection-by using mere aperture collimation-hardly reaches the needed intensities.
Transverse emittance growth along the Alvarez drift tube linac (DTL) section is a major concern with respect to the preservation of beam quality of high current beams at the GSI UNILAC. In order to define measures to reduce this growth, appropriate tools to simulate the beam dynamics are indispensable. This paper is about the benchmarking of three beam dynamics simulation codes, i.e. DYNAMION, PARMILA, and PARTRAN against systematic measurements of beam emittances for different transverse phase advances along the DTL. Special emphasis is put on the modeling of the initial distribution for the simulations. The concept of rms equivalence is expanded from full intensity to fractions of less than 100% of the beam. The experimental setup, data reduction, preparation of the simulations, and the evaluation of the simulations are described. In the experiments and in the simulations, a minimum of the rms-emittance growth was observed at zero current phase advances of about 60. In general, good agreement was found between simulations and experiment for the mean values of horizontal and vertical emittances at the DTL exit.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.