Editing Synchrotron (section)

{{short description|Type of cyclic particle accelerator}}
{{about|the synchrotron, a [[particle accelerator]]|accelerators designed specifically to make use of [[synchrotron radiation]] |synchrotron light source}}

[[File:University of Michigan synchrotron.jpg|thumb|The first synchrotron to use the "racetrack" design with straight sections, a 300&nbsp;MeV electron synchrotron at [[University of Michigan]] in 1949, designed by [[H. Richard Crane|Dick Crane]].]]
A '''synchrotron''' is a particular type of cyclic [[particle accelerator]], descended from the [[cyclotron]], in which the accelerating particle beam travels around a fixed closed-loop path.  The strength of the [[magnetic field]] which bends the particle beam into its closed path increases with time during the accelerating process, being ''synchronized'' to the increasing [[kinetic energy]] of the particles.<ref>{{cite book | editor1-last=Chao | editor1-first=A. W. | editor2-last=Mess | editor2-first=K. H. | editor3-last=Tigner | editor3-first=M. |display-editors = 3 | editor4-last=Zimmermann | editor4-first=F. | year=2013 | title=Handbook of Accelerator Physics and Engineering | edition=2nd | publisher=World Scientific | isbn=978-981-4417-17-4 | doi=10.1142/8543| s2cid=108427390 | url=https://cds.cern.ch/record/384825 }}</ref>

The synchrotron is one of the first accelerator concepts to enable the construction of large-scale facilities, since bending, beam focusing and acceleration can be separated into different components.  The most powerful modern particle accelerators use versions of the synchrotron design.  The largest synchrotron-type accelerator, also the largest particle accelerator in the world, is the {{convert|27|km|mi|adj=mid|-circumference}} [[Large Hadron Collider]] (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland, completed in 2008 by the [[European Organization for Nuclear Research]] (CERN).<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-12-15 |title=The Large Hadron Collider |url=https://home.web.cern.ch/science/accelerators/large-hadron-collider |access-date=2024-01-15 |website=CERN |language=en}}</ref>  It can accelerate beams of protons to an energy of 7 [[electron volt|teraelectronvolts]] (TeV or 10<sup>12</sup> eV).

The synchrotron principle was invented by [[Vladimir Veksler]] in 1944.<ref>
{{Cite journal |first=V. I. |last=Veksler |title=A new method of accelerating relativistic particles |journal=[[Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences de l'URSS]] |volume=43 |number=8 |year=1944 |pages=346–348 |url = http://lhe.jinr.ru/rus/veksler/wv0/publikacii/1944Veksler.pdf}}</ref> [[Edwin McMillan]] constructed the first electron synchrotron in 1945, arriving at the idea independently, having missed Veksler's publication (which was only available in a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] journal, although in English).<ref>{{cite web|last=J. David Jackson and W.K.H. Panofsky|title=EDWIN MATTISON MCMILLAN: A Biographical Memoir |url=http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/mcmillan-edwin.pdf | publisher= [[National Academy of Sciences]] |year=1996}}</ref><ref name="cern-50 years">{{cite web|last=Wilson|title=Fifty Years of Synchrotrons|url=http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/accelconf/e96/PAPERS/ORALS/FRX04A.PDF|publisher=[[CERN]]|access-date=2012-01-15}} 
</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Zinovyeva|first=Larisa|title=On the question about the autophasing discovery authorship|url=http://www.larisa-zinovyeva.com/%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%BE-%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BA%D1%80%D1%8B%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%8F-%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%84%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BA%D0%B8/ |access-date=2015-06-29}}
</ref> The first proton synchrotron was designed by [[Mark Oliphant|Sir Marcus Oliphant]]<ref name="cern-50 years" /><ref>{{cite journal|last=Rotblat|first=Joseph|title=Obituary: Mark Oliphant (1901–2000)|journal=Nature|volume=407|issue=6803|pages=468|year=2000 |doi=10.1038/35035202 |pmid=11028988|doi-access=free}}</ref> and built in 1952.<ref name="cern-50 years" />