PIP: A low energy recycling nonscaling FFAG for security and medicine

PIP, the Proton Isotope Production accelerator, is a low
energy (6-10 MeV) proton nsFFAG design that uses a sim-
ple 4-cell lattice. Low energy reactions involving the cre-
ation of specific nuclear states can be used for neutron pro-
duction and for the manufacture of various medical iso-
topes. Unfortunately a beam rapidly loses energy in a target
and falls below the resonant energy. A recycling ring with
a thin internal target enables the particles that did not in-
teract to be re-accelerated and used for subsequent cycles.
The increase in emittance due to scattering in the target is
partially countered by the re-acceleration, and accommo-
dated by the large acceptance of the nsFFAG. The ring is
essentially isochronous, the fields provide strong focussing
so that losses are small, the components are simple, and it
could be built at low cost with existing technology.