EMMA (accelerator)

The Electron Machine with Many Applications (EMMA) is a project at Daresbury Laboratory in the UK to build a non-scaling FFAG to accelerate electrons from 10 to 20 MeV. A FFAG (Fixed Field Alternating Gradient) is a type of accelerator in which the magnetic field in the bending magnets is constant during acceleration. This means the particle beam will move radially outwards as its momentum increases.

A non-scaling FFAG is one in which a quantity known as the betatron tune is allowed to vary unchecked. In a conventional synchrotron such a variation would result in loss of the beam. However, in EMMA the beam will cross these resonances so rapidly that their effect should not be seen.

EMMA is a proof-of-principle machine; the experience gained in building this machine will be useful for future muon accelerators (which are used in neutrino factories), and also for proton and carbon ion accelerators, which have applications for cancer therapy.

EMMA will be an add-on to the ERLP project at Daresbury, and will take part of the beam from ERLP.

EMMA is funded by the BASROC consortium, under the CONFORM umbrella. Commissioning of EMMA is due to begin in September 2009.

External links

* [http://www.astec.ac.uk/Projects/Proj_EMMA.htm ASTeC project page]
* [https://www.conform.ac.uk/EMMA/ CONFORM - EMMA section]