124286964
INNOVATIONS IN ISOCHRONOUS CYCLOTRONS.
Since the last International Conference on Isochronous Cyclotrons, three major projects have been approved: the 585 MeV proton cyclotron of the Swiss Institute for Nuclear Research (SIN) to be built at Villigen near Zurich; the 500 MeV Hcyclotron of the Tri-University Meson Facility (TRIUMF) at Vancouver, British Columbia; and the 200 MeV variable energy cyclotron of the Indiana University. A much smaller but unique project has been successfully brought into operation, the cyclograaff at Duke University which combines a small cyclotron with a tandem accelerator in a way which enhances the desirable characteristics of both. Finally, the most important happening since the last conference has been the renewed interest in accelerators for very heavy ions. In the United States alone, there will be more than ten major proposals. This paper reviews the activities and progress of the past several years and discusses some of the important innovations accomplished or foreseen.
37428412
Coupled Operation of the Oak Ridge Isochronous Cyclotron and the 25 MV Tandem
Coupled operation of the 25 MV tandem and the Oak Ridge Isochronous Cyclotron (ORIC) was achieved on January 27, 1981. A beam of 38 MeV 16O2+ was injected into ORIC, stripped to 8+ and accelerated to 324 MeV. Shortly afterwards, the energy was increased to the maximum design value of 25 MeV/amu (400 MeV). A spectrum taken of the scattering of this beam from a thin 208Pb target in the broad range spectrograph exhibited a resolution of 115 keV (FWHM). Performance of the system was in close agreement with that predicted from calculations.
125516191
Alternates to the cyclotron for heavy-ion acceleration.
The status and future possibilities for several alternates to the cyclotron for heavy‐ion acceleration are discussed. Linear accelerators, both conventional and superconducting, tandem electrostatic accelerators, and the electron ring accelerator are among the accelerator types and concepts reviewed and compared.
115477044
Magnet Model Studies for Separated-Sector Heavy Ion Cyclotrons
A four-sector model of a 2400 ton (2200 metric ton), K=440, separated-sector cyclotron magnet has been built to 0.15 scale. The sector angle of the magnet is 52°. Magnetic field measurements have been made using a single Hall-effect element that was positioned by a high-precision numerically controlled table. Magnetic field data and the ion focusing characteristics are presented.
118797485
Initial operation of ORIC with tandem injection
Coupled operation of the 25 MV tandem and ORIC was achieved on January 27, 1981. The initial beam was 324 MeV /sup 16/O/sup 8 +/ followed shortly by oxygen at 400 MeV-the maximum design energy. Following additional installation and testing of the tandem, coupled operation for a nuclear physics experiment began in August. Performance of the system was in close agreement with that predicted from calculations.
93888470
Design Study for the Conversion of the Oak Ridge Isochronous Cyclotron from an Energy Constant of K=90 to K=300 MeV
A possible method of achieving a K=300 MeV cyclotron by increasing the average magnetic field of the Oak Ridge Isochronous Cyclotron (ORIC) from 18.6 to 33.9 kG with superconducting coils has been investigated.
18453213
Inflationary Perturbations: The Cosmological Schwinger Effect
This pedagogical review aims at presenting the fundamental aspects of the theory of inflationary cosmological perturbations of quantum-mechanical origin. The analogy with the well-known Schwinger effect is discussed in detail and a systematic comparison of the two physical phenomena is carried out. In particular, it is demonstrated that the two underlying formalisms differ only up to an irrelevant canonical transformation. Hence, the basic physical mechanisms at play are similar in both cases and can be reduced to the quantization of a parametric oscillator leading to particle creation due to the interaction with a classical source: pair production in vacuum is therefore equivalent to the appearance of a growing mode for the cosmological fluctuations. The only difference lies in the nature of the source: an electric field in the case of the Schwinger effect and the gravitational field in the case of inflationary perturbations. Although, in the laboratory, it is notoriously diffcult to produce an electric field such that pairs extracted from the vacuum can be detected, the gravitational field in the early universe can be strong enough to lead to observable effects that ultimately reveal themselves as temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background. Finally, the question of how quantum cosmological perturbations can be considered as classical is discussed at the end of this chapter.
18165833
Generation of large scale magnetic fields in single-field inflation
We consider the generation of large scale magnetic fields in slow-roll inflation. The inflaton field is described in a supergravity framework where the conformal invariance of the electromagnetic field is generically and naturally broken. For each class of inflationary scenarios, we determine the functional dependence of the gauge coupling that is consistent with the observations on the magnetic field strength at various astrophysical scales and, at the same time, avoid a back-reaction problem. Then, we study whether the required coupling functions can naturally emerge in well motivated, possibly string inspired, models. We argue that this is non-trivial and can be realized only for a restricted class of scenarios. This includes power-law inflation where the inflaton field is interpreted as a modulus. However, this scenario seems to be consistent only if the energy scale of inflation is low and the reheating stage prolonged. Another reasonable possibility appears to be small field models since no back-reaction problem is present in this case but, unfortunately, the corresponding scenario cannot be justified in a stringy framework. Finally, large field models do not lead to sensible model building.
118913322
Perturbations in the ekpyrotic scenarios
With the new cosmological data gathered over the last few years, the inflationary paradigm has seen its predictions largely unchallenged. A recent proposal, called the ekpyrotic scenario, was argued to be a viable competitor as it was claimed that the spectrum of primordial perturbations it produces is scale invariant. By investigating closely this scenario, we show that the corresponding spectrum depends explicitly on an arbitrary function of wavenumber and is therefore itself arbitrary. It can at will be set scale invariant. We conclude that the scenario is not predictive at this stage.
118719996
The Quantum State of Inflationary Perturbations
This article reviews the properties of the quantum state of inflationary perturbations. After a brief description of the inflationary background, the wavefunction of the Mukhanov-Sasaki variable is calculated and shown to be that of a strongly squeezed state. The corresponding Wigner function and density matrix, which are convenient tools to characterize the properties of a quantum state, are also evaluated. Finally, the issue of definite outcomes for inflation is discussed.
119388182
Passing through the bounce in the ekpyrotic models
By considering a simplified but exact model for realizing the ekpyrotic scenario, we clarify various assumptions that have been used in the literature. In particular, we discuss the new ekpyrotic prescription for passing the perturbations through the singularity which we show to provide a spectrum depending on a nonphysical normalization function. We also show that this prescription does not reproduce the exact result for a sharp transition. Then, more generally, we demonstrate that, in the only case where a bounce can be obtained in Einstein general relativity without facing singularities and/or violation of the standard energy conditions, the bounce cannot be made arbitrarily short. This contrasts with the standard (inflationary) situation where the transition between two eras with different values of the equation of state can be considered as instantaneous. We then argue that the usually conserved quantities are not constant on a typical bounce time scale. Finally, we also examine the case of a test scalar field (or gravitational waves) where similar results are obtained. We conclude that the full dynamical equations of the underlying theory should be solved in a nonsingular case before any conclusion can be drawn.