Optics of High-Energy Beams

Many of the experiments now being conducted on high-energy accelerators requires the use of beams of charged secondary particles. It is worth while at this time to attempt to summarize information about some of the most useful methods of setting up such beams. We are not concerned here with the primary beam of the accelerator. Rather, they assume that a target is struck by the primary beam and that it is desired to form a beam from the secondary charged particles that emerge from collisions within the target. The simplest system of forming this beam of secondary particles involves the use of magnetic fields only. In most cases it is desirable to obtain a beam of particles of known magnetic rigidity, or momentum. The bulk of this article is addressed to this problem. Some comments are also made about the use of electric fields in conjunction with magnetic fields. The inclusion of electric fields allows the separation of a beam of known momentum into its various components according to the velocities of the particles, hence according to the masses of the particles. These are referred to as ''separated beams''