Injector particle simulation and beam transport in a compact linear proton accelerator

Abstract

A compact Dielectric Wall Accelerator (DWA)[1,2,3], with field gradient up to 100 MW/m is being developed to acclerate proton bunches for use in cancer therapy treatment. The injector must create a proton pulse up to several hundred picoseconds, which is then shaped and accelerated with energies up to 250 MeV. The Particle-In-Cell (PIC) code LSP is used to model several aspects of this design. First, we use LSP to obtain the voltage waveform in the A-K gap that will produce a proton bunch with the requisite charge. We then model pulse compression and shaping in the section between the A-K gap and the DWA. We finally use LSP to model the beam transport through the DWA.