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news release:
Manchester to spearhead £8.3
million particle physics project
London, UK, 2 May 2007: The
University of Manchester
is leading an £8.3 million drive to develop a new type of particle accelerator,
which could lead to more effective cancer treatment, greener electricity and
less nuclear waste.
Particle accelerators are used to produce beams
of charged particles such as protons or electrons, which are then used for a
wide variety of applications in medicine and industry and for pure scientific
research.
Researchers say there is a compelling need for
new types of accelerator that are easier to operate and maintain, are more
reliable and compact, yet are more flexible and efficient.
One such accelerator is the 'non-scaling fixed
field alternating gradient' (NS-FFAG) accelerator.
It is considered a very promising candidate, but
no-one has yet built such a machine, and there are many technical challenges to
be overcome before such a machine could be used commercially.
The new CONFORM* project has received £7.5
million funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
The research is being led Professor Roger Barlow
from The School of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Manchester, in
collaboration with Science and Technology Facilities Council (formerly the CCLRC)
at the Daresbury Laboratory, The Cockroft Institute (also based at The Daresbury
Laboratory), The University of Oxford, Imperial College London, The University
of Birmingham, The University of Surrey, The University of Leeds, The University
of Glasgow and The Gray Cancer Institute.
Professor Barlow said: "An opportunity is arising
which could allow the NS-FFAG to be used as a new type of charged particle
therapy machine for treating cancer. The reduced size, increased reliability and
flexibility of such machines should all lead to lower costs of ownership while
delivering more effective therapies."
Professor Barlow adds that beams of protons or
heavier particles such as carbon ions can deposit much more radiation directly
in the cancer, while losing much less energy in the surrounding healthy tissue.
He continued: "NS-FFAGs could be used for many
other purposes. They could be used to help generate electricity without
significant greenhouse gas emissions while reducing the amount of long-lived
nuclear waste produced.
"They could play a significant role in elementary
particle physics, perhaps leading to new discoveries about the origin and
structure of the universe we see around us today.
"This type of accelerator could also be at the
heart of a new generation of very intense sources of neutrons for studying the
structure of materials and the dynamics of chemical reactions, of interest to
physicists, chemists, biologists, engineers and many industries.
"The demonstration in this country that these
machines are able to meet the expectations listed above would place the UK at
the forefront of this exciting new development.
"The benefits of this type of particle
accelerator are large and wide-ranging. However, the behaviour of beams in these
machines is impossible to predict in detail. We need to understand their
stability and how tolerant they are of small changes in configuration."
The CONFORM project will is split into three
areas; EMMA (Electron Machine with Many Applications) will look to develop a
prototype FFAG to be built at the Daresbury Laboratory, while PAMELA is a design
study for a proton NS-FFAG for medical applications. The third area will look at
possible applications, from archaeology to zoology.
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