The theme of this volume, “Medical Applications of Accelerators”, is of enormous importance to human health and has a deep impact on our society.The invention of particle accelerators in the early 20th century created a whole new world for producing energetic X-rays, electrons, protons, neutrons and other particle beams. Immediately these beams found revolutionary applications in medicine. There are two important yet distinct medical applications. One is that accelerators produce radioisotopes for various nuclear medicines for millions of patients each year. The other is that accelerators produce particle beams for radiation therapy for the treatment of cancer. The particle beams can be X-rays (generated by high-energy electrons), protons, neutrons or heavy ions such as carbon. Today there are more than 5,000 accelerators routinely used in hospitals all over the world for nuclear medicine and cancer therapy. The great potential of accelerator applications in medicine can hardly be exaggerated.This volume contains 14 articles, all written by distinguished scholars.

This book is dedicated to superconducting technology and its applications, including superconducting magnets (SC magnets) and superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities.

The Science and Technology of Particle Accelerators provides an accessible introduction to the field, and is suitable for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and academics, as well as professionals in national laboratories and facilities, industry, and medicine who are designing or using particle accelerators. Providing integrated coverage of accelerator science and technology, this book presents the fundamental concepts alongside detailed engineering discussions and extensive practical guidance, including many numerical examples. For each topic, the authors provide a description of the physical principles, a guide to the practical application of those principles, and a discussion of how to design the components that allow the application to be realised. Features: Written by an interdisciplinary and highly respected team of physicists and engineers from the Cockcroft Institute of Accelerator Science and Technology in the UK Accessible style, with many numerical examples Contains an extensive set of problems, with fully worked solutions available Rob Appleby is an academic member of staff at the University of Manchester, and Chief Examiner in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Graeme Burt is an academic member of staff at the University of Lancaster, and previous Director of Education at the Cockcroft Institute. James Clarke is head of Science Division in the Accelerator Science and Technology Centre at STFC Daresbury Laboratory. Hywel Owen is an academic member of staff at the University of Manchester, and Director of Education at the Cockcroft Institute. All authors are researchers within the Cockcroft Institute of Accelerator Science and Technology and have extensive experience in the design and construction of particle accelerators, including particle colliders, synchrotron radiation sources, free electron lasers, and medical and industrial accelerator systems.

Particle accelerators are a major invention of the 20th century. In the last eight decades, they have evolved enormously and have fundamentally changed the way we live, think and work. Accelerators are the most powerful microscopes for viewing the tiniest inner structure of cells, genes, molecules, atoms and their constituents such as protons, neutrons, electrons, neutrinos and quarks. This opens up a whole new world for materials science, chemistry and molecular biology. Accelerators with megawatt beam power may ultimately solve a critical problem faced by our society, namely, the treatment of nuclear waste and the supply of an alternative type of energy. There are also tens of thousands of small accelerators all over the world. They are used every day for medical imaging, cancer therapy, radioisotope production, high-density chip-making, mass spectrometry, cargo x-ray/gamma-ray imaging, detection of explosives and illicit drugs, and weapons. This volume provides a comprehensive review of this driving and fascinating field

As particle accelerators strive forever increasing performance, high intensity particle beams become one of the critical demands requested across the board by a majority of accelerator users (proton, electron and ion) and for most applications. Much effort has been made by our community to pursue high intensity accelerator performance on a number of fronts. Recognizing its importance, we devote this volume to Accelerators for High Intensity Beams. High intensity accelerators have become a frontier and a network for innovation. They are responsible for many scientific discoveries and technological breakthroughs that have changed our way of life, often taken for granted. A wide range of topics is covered in the fourteen articles in this volume.

Over the past several decades major advances in accelerators have resulted from breakthroughs in accelerator science and accelerator technology. After the introduction of a new accelerator physics concept or the implementation of a new technology, a leap in accelerator performance followed. A well-known representation of these advances is the Livingston chart, which shows an exponential growth of accelerator performance over the last seven or eight decades. One of the breakthrough accelerator technologies that support this exponential growth is superconducting technology. Recognizing this major technological advance, we dedicate Volume 5 of Reviews of Accelerator Science and Technology (RAST) to superconducting technology and its applications.Two major applications are superconducting magnets (SC magnets) and superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities. SC magnets provide much higher magnetic field than their room-temperature counterparts, thus allowing accelerators to reach higher energies with comparable size as well as much reduced power consumption. SRF technology allows field energy storage for continuous wave applications and energy recovery, in addition to the advantage of tremendous power savings and better particle beam quality. In this volume, we describe both technologies and their applications. We also include discussion of the associated R&D in superconducting materials and the future prospects for these technologies.

Since its invention in the 1920s, particle accelerators have made tremendous progress in accelerator science, technology and applications. However, the fundamental acceleration principle, namely, to apply an external radiofrequency (RF) electric field to accelerate charged particles, remains unchanged. As this method (either room temperature RF or superconducting RF) is approaching its intrinsic limitation in acceleration gradient (measured in MeV/m), it becomes apparent that new methods with much higher acceleration gradient (measured in GeV/m) must be found for future very high energy accelerators as well as future compact (table-top or room-size) accelerators. This volume introduces a number of advanced accelerator concepts (AAC) — their principles, technologies and potential applications. For the time being, none of them stands out as a definitive direction in which to go. But these novel ideas are in hot pursuit and look promising. Furthermore, some AAC requires a high power laser system. This has the implication of bringing two different communities — accelerator and laser — to join forces and work together. It will have profound impact on the future of our field.Also included are two special articles, one on 'Particle Accelerators in China' which gives a comprehensive overview of the rapidly growing accelerator community in China. The other features the person-of-the-issue who was well-known nuclear physicist Jerome Lewis Duggan, a pioneer and founder of a huge community of industrial and medical accelerators in the US.