Hadron cancer therapy complex using nonscaling fixed field alternating gradient accelerator and gantry design

Abstract

Nonscaling fixed field alternating gradient (FFAG) rings for cancer hadron therapy offer reduced physical aperture and large dynamic aperture as compared to scaling FFAGs. The variation of tune with energy implies the crossing of resonances during acceleration. Our design avoids intrinsic resonances, although imperfection resonances must be crossed. We consider a system of three nonscaling FFAG rings for cancer therapy with 250 MeV protons and 400 MeV/u carbon ions. Hadrons are accelerated in a common radio frequency quadrupole and linear accelerator, and injected into the FFAG rings at v/c=0.1294. H^{+}/C^{6+} ions are accelerated in the two smaller/larger rings to 31 and 250 MeV/68.8 and 400 MeV/u kinetic energy, respectively. The lattices consist of doublet cells with a straight section for rf cavities. The gantry with triplet cells accepts the whole required momentum range at fixed field. This unique design uses either high-temperature superconductors or superconducting magnets reducing gantry magnet size and weight. Elements with a variable field at the beginning and at the end set the extracted beam at the correct position for a range of energies.