Vacuum in Accelerators for Mechanical & Materials Engineering

TL;DR

This paper provides an overview of vacuum systems in accelerators, covering fundamental principles, instrumentation, and specific challenges related to beam interactions and system design.

Contribution

It introduces the fundamentals of vacuum science and discusses the unique aspects of accelerator vacuum systems, including design, construction, and beam interactions.

Findings

Fundamentals of vacuum science explained

Standard vacuum instruments overviewed

Specific challenges in accelerator vacuum systems discussed

Abstract

Vacuum systems are an intrinsic part of any accelerator around the world: all particles circulate under vacuum. This lecture gives rudiments on the fundamentals of vacuum science such as units, ideal gas law, partial pressure, mean free path, flow of molecules, conductance, pumping speed, and outgassing. An overview of standard vacuum instruments for pressure measurement and pumping is presented. Finally, the specificities of accelerator vacuum systems are introduced, discussing some design, construction, installation, and commissioning aspects, as well as fundamentals of beam-vacuum interactions with synchrotron radiation and electron cloud.