New Particle Accleration Techniques
In 1932 John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton developed an electrostatic accelerator at the Cavendish Laboratory, thus starting the modern age of particle accelerators. Since then, our capabilities have increased tremendously, as may be seen in figure 1, which shows the energy of acceleratorsthrough the years. There has been an exponential increase in energy (the “Livingston curve”)—but it is the envelope that displays this exponential behavior, not any particular technique. One can conclude that if we are to stay anywhere near the Livingston curve, new techniques need to be developed.