In particle physics, a beamline is the line along which a beam of particles travels through, or when projected from, a particle accelerator. It may refer to the line of travel within an actual accelerator, and to the equipment that maintains that beam in a storage ring or accelerates it in a linear accelerator. It may also refer to a beam of X-rays projected to stations for doing crystallography at light source facility like CHESS, or to a beam of neutrinos projected through the earth for faraway detector as in the MINOS project. Particles erupt from the collision point of two relativistic (100 GeV) gold ions in the STAR detector of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. ... A subatomic particle is a particle smaller than an atom: it may be elementary or composite. ... One of the early particle accelerators responsible for development of the atomic bomb. ... A Linear particle accelerator is an electrical device for the acceleration of subatomic particles. ... In the NATO phonetic alphabet, X-ray represents the letter X. An X-ray picture (radiograph) taken by Röntgen An X-ray is a form of electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength approximately in the range of 5 pm to 10 nanometers (corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 PHz... Crystallography (from the Greek words crystallon = cold drop / frozen drop, with its meaning extending to all solids with some degree of transparency, and graphein = write) is the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in solids. ... A chess table is a table with a chessboard painted or engraved on it. ... The neutrino is an elementary particle. ... MINOS or (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search) is an experiment at Fermilab, designed to study the phenomena of neutrino oscillations. ...

Encased in a cement tunnel for a particle accelerator in most cases underground, is the beam line or beam pipe. Picture depicts the transducers and complicated appatratus to produce a beam just outside of the beam pipe

It is impossible to see the beam pipe on this beam line. However the section of the big beam pipe is used with a grid system for alignment with a laser, known as the laser pipe. This particular beam line is two miles long or approximately 3 kilometers in length

Image File history File links The introduction of this article does not provide enough context for readers unfamiliar with the subject. ... Image File history File links The introduction of this article does not provide enough context for readers unfamiliar with the subject. ... One of the early particle accelerators responsible for development of the atomic bomb. ... modern linear accelerator File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... modern linear accelerator File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Laser (US Air Force) A LASER (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) is an optical source composed of a resonant optical cavity and a gain medium. ...

Equipment for maintaining/accelerating a beam

In a particle accelerators the beam line is that section usually housed in a tunnel and or underground, cased inside a cement housing. The beam line is usually cylindrical metal so that the particle beam enters and exits. Typical names may include, beam pipe, and or drift tube. This entire section must be under good vacuum in order to have a mean free path for the beam to go through meaning no collisions, or the absence of atmosphere. The better the vacuum, the less chance of beam blowup. For other uses, see vacuum cleaner and Vacuum (musical group). ... For sound waves in an enclosure, the mean free path is the average distance the wave travels between reflections off of the enclosures walls. ... Saturns atmosphere is made up of hydorgen, helium and methane ...

Sophisticated transducers

A number of devices need to be attached to the beam pipe in order to produce, monitor, and maintain the beam line. These include sophisticated transducers such as bending magnets and focusing magnets; diagnostics such as beam position monitors and wire scanners; lenses; collimators; thermocouples; ion chambers, Ion pumps, and Ion gauges; vacuum valves ("isolation valves") and gate valves, to mention a few. There are also water cooling devices such as water valves, regulators, etc. Positive pressures, such as that produced by compressed air, which regulates and controls vacuum valves. A transducer is a device that converts one type of energy to another, or responds to a physical parameter. ... A dipole magnet, in particle accelerators, is a magnet constructed to create a homogeneous magnetic field over some distance. ... Quadrapoles are designed to create magnetic fields whose magnitude grows linearly with the radial distance from its longitudinal axis, which is usually centered around and parallel to the main motion of the charged particles. ... How a lead collimator filters a stream of rays. ... In electronics, thermocouples are a widely used type of temperature sensor. ... An ionization chamber is a device used for two major purposes: detecting particles in air (as in a smoke detector), and for detection or measurement of ionizing radiation. ... Sputter ion pumps are a class of vacuum pump designed to operate in very low pressure (i. ... A gate valve is a valve that opens by lifting a round or rectangular gate out of the path of the fluid. ... Pneumatics, from the Greek πνευματικός (pneumatikos, coming from the wind) is the use of pressurized air in science and technology. ...

Beam pipe with a gap

More rarely than occasionally, except at the end of the accelerator, the beamline has no beam pipe, and the beam may go through a metal or glass window that acts as a point of exit to another section point of enrty while preserving and/ or isolating the internal vacuum. This section, or cavity is usually an air gap of no more than a few inches in length.

Alignment of components on a beam line

It is imperative to have the beamline sections aligned to within microns, to prevent the beam from colliding with the pipe walls, which may produce secondary emissions and/or radiation. A micrometre (American spelling: micrometer), symbol µm, is an SI unit of length. ... Secondary emission is a phenomenon that occurs in electron tubes where electrons impact an electrode with sufficient energy to knock additional electrons from the surface of that electrode. ... Radiation has a variety of different meanings. ...

X-ray beamlines for crystallography

Beam lines at synchrotrons

Beamlines at synchrotrons are facilities at which researchers get access to synchrotron light, the tunable and high-energy X-ray beams used in synchrotron research. A fully shielded path guides the high-energy X-ray beams from bending magnets or insertion devices in the storage ring to the research station(s). A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator in which the magnetic field (to turn the particles so they circulate) and the electric field (to accelerate the particles) are carefully synchronized with the travelling particle beam. ... This article is mostly concerned with applications of synchrotron radiation produced by cyclic paticle accelerators. ... Bending magnets are electromagnets used to bend the electron beam into a synchrotron. ...

A large synchrotron facility will have many beamlines, each optimised for a particular field of research, such as materials science, crystallography, medical imaging, life sciences etc. The differences will depend on the type of insertion device (which, in turn, determines the intensity and spectral distribution of the radiation); the beam conditioning equipment; and the experimental end station. The Materials Science Tetrahedron Materials science is a multidisciplinary field focusing on functional solids, whether the function served is structural, electronic, thermal, chemical, magnetic, optical, or some combination of these. ... Crystallography (from the Greek words crystallon = cold drop / frozen drop, with its meaning extending to all solids with some degree of transparency, and graphein = write) is the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in solids. ... Medical imaging is the process by which physicians evaluate an area of the subjects body that is not normally visible. ...

Elements used in beamlines for conditioning the beam between the storage ring and the end station include the following:

• Windows - thin sheets of metal, often Beryllium, which transmit almost all of the beam, but protect the vacuum within the storage ring from contamination

• Slits - which control the physical width of the beam and its angular spread

• Focusing mirrors - one or more mirrors, which may be flat, bent-flat, or toroidal, which helps to collimate (focus) the beam

• Monochromators - devices based on diffraction by crystals which select particular wavelength bands and absorb other wavelengths, and which are sometimes tunable to varying wavelengths, and sometimes fixed to a particular wavelength

• Spacing tubes - vacuum tubes which provide the proper space between optical elements, and shield any scattered radiation

The combination of beam conditioning devices controls the thermal load (heating caused by the beam) at the end station; the spectrum of radiation incident at the end station; and the focus or collimation of the beam. Devices along the beamline which absorb significant power from the beam may need to be actively cooled, by water or even by liquid nitrogen. The entire length of a beamline is normally kept under ultra-high vacuum conditions. General Name, Symbol, Number beryllium, Be, 4 Chemical series alkaline earth metals Group, Period, Block 2, 2, s Appearance white-gray metallic Atomic mass 9. ... A toroid is a doughnut-shaped object whose surface is a torus. ... How a lead collimator filters a stream of rays. ... Diffraction is the bending and spreading of waves when they meet an obstruction. ... The wavelength is the distance between repeating units of a wave pattern. ... In electronics, a vacuum tube (American English) or (thermionic) valve (British English) is a device generally used to amplify, or otherwise modify, a signal. ...

A typical beamline at a modern synchrotron facility will be 25m to 30m long from the storage ring to the end station, and may cost several hundred thousand dollars. For this reason, a synchrotron facility is often built in stages, with the first few beamlines opening on day one of operation, and other beamlines being added later as the budget permits.

See also

• Accelerator physics
• CHESS
• Cyclotron
• Electromagnetism
• Ion beam
• Linear particle accelerator
• Klystron
• Particle accelerator
• Particle beam
• Particle physics
• List of particles
• Quadrupole magnet
• Stanford Linear Accelerator
• Vacuum

Accelerator physics deals with the problems of building and operating particle accelerators. ... A chess table is a table with a chessboard painted or engraved on it. ... 60-inch cyclotron, circa 1939, showing beam of accelerated ions (perhaps protons or deuterons) escaping the accelerator and ionizing the surrounding air causing a blue glow. ... Quadrupole (four-pole) magnet, focus particle beams in a particle accelerator. ... An ion beam is a stream of charged particles, which has many uses in electronics manufacturing (principally ion implantation) and other industries. ... A Linear particle accelerator is an electrical device for the acceleration of subatomic particles. ... Reflex klystron Type 2K25 or 723 A/B. The threaded adjustment rod on the right side allows the position of the reflector to be adjusted (by compressing the reflex cavity), and thus the natural resonant frequency of the device. ... One of the early particle accelerators responsible for development of the atomic bomb. ... A particle beam is an accelerated stream of atoms or subatomic particles (often moving at very near the speed of light) directed by magnets and focused by lenses. ... Particles erupt from the collision point of two relativistic (100 GeV) gold ions in the STAR detector of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. ... List of particles in particle physics. ... Quadrapoles are designed to create magnetic fields whose magnitude grows linearly with the radial distance from its longitudinal axis, which is usually centered around and parallel to the main motion of the charged particles. ... The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) is a U.S. national laboratory operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy. ... For other uses, see vacuum cleaner and Vacuum (musical group). ...

External link

• Macromolecular Crystallography at Synchrotrons: An Historical Introduction