The propagation of relativistic heavy ions in multielement beam lines.

Abstract

We describe calculations of the energy loss, range, stopping power, multiple scattering, and other related properties of a high-energy heavy-ion beam at any one of a set of beam line elements. A beam line element (e.g., any beam modification, detection, or control device) is characterized by its thickness, areal density, aperture, and function. The loss of multiply scattered particles to any finite-aperture detector is calculated in the small-angle approximation, and the position of the Bragg peak, as given by particles stopping in the second of two ionization chambers used for Bragg curve measurements, is estimated. A general purpose computer program, PROPAGATE, has been written to allow addition, deletion, and modification of the beam line elements used in the calculation and to provide a convenient means of repeating such calculations for arbitrary beam lines. Calculations and experimental measurements are compared and found to be in satisfactory agreement.