FFAG synchrotron

A Fixed-Field Alternating Gradient accelerator (FFAG) is a circular particle accelerator concept on which development was started in the early 50s, and that can be characterized by its time-independent magnetic fields (fixed-field, like in a cyclotron) and the use of strong focusing (alternating gradient, like in a synchrotron). Thus, FFAG accelerators combine the cyclotron's advantage of continuous, unpulsed operation, with the synchrotron's relatively inexpensive small magnet ring, of narrow bore.

Although the development of FFAGs had not been pursued for over a decade starting from 1967, it has regained interest since the mid-1980s for usage in neutron spallation sources, as a driver for muon colliders and to accelerate muons in a neutrino factory since the mid-1990s.

The revival in FFAG research has been particularly strong in Japan with the construction of several rings. This resurgence has been prompted in part by advances in RF cavities and in magnet design.

The idea of fixed-field alternating-gradient synchrotrons was developed independently in Japan by Tihiro Ohkawa, in the United States by Keith Symon, and in Russia by Andrei Kolomensky. The first prototype, built by Lawrence W. Jones and Kent M. Terwilliger at the University of Michigan used betatron acceleration and was operational in early 1956. That fall, the prototype was moved to the Midwestern Universities Research Association (MURA) lab at University of Wisconsin, where it was converted to a 500 keV electron synchrotron. Symon's patent, filed in early 1956, uses the terms "FFAG accelerator" and "FFAG synchrotron". Ohkawa worked with Symon and the MURA team for several years starting in 1955.

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