Energy recovery proton linear accelerator

作者：Ji Qiang · 发表于：Physical Review Accelerators and Beams · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1103/9bh4-fnq7 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Particle accelerators and beam dynamics、Particle Accelerators and Free-Electron Lasers、Particle Detector Development and Performance

High-power proton linear accelerators have important applications in both scientific research and industry. However, the operation of such accelerators with megawatt-level beam power is expensive and limits the broad availability of these facilities. In this Letter, we propose a novel energy recovery proton linear accelerator in which the final GeV-level proton beam is reinjected into the linear accelerator from the accelerator exit and is decelerated in the same accelerator down to about 2 MeV, close to the initial beam energy. This substantially reduces the power consumption of the proton linear accelerator and also avoids the need for a high-power beam dump. We demonstrate this concept through self-consistent simulations and show that the beam-beam effect between the forward-accelerating beam and the backward-decelerating beam would not be a limiting factor for the proposed concept. A potential application of this concept to an electron-ion collider based on energy recovery electron and ion accelerators is discussed.