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Particle accelerators are devices producing beams of energetic ions and electrons which are employed for many different purposes including basic research. High-energy physics research has always been the driving force behind the development of particle accelerators. There is also an increasing interest in radiation therapy in the medical world and industry has been a long-time user of accelerators.
The Energy Amplifier (EA) proposed by Carlo Rubbia and his group is an Accelerator Driven sub-critical reactor System (ADS). In ADS, a high-energy proton beam from an accelerator strikes a heavy element (e.g.; Pb, W, U, Th etc.) target which yields copious neutrons by spallation reaction. These neutrons multiply in a sub-critical core through self terminating fission chains. It can be shown that total fission energy released in the multiplying medium is many folds larger than the energy of input proton beam. Thus such a system acts as an energy amplifier. Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) have also evoked considerable interest the world over because of their capability to incinerate the MA (minor actinides) and LLFP (long-lived fission products) radiotoxic waste and utilization of Thorium as an alternative nuclear fuel. For India, this has great significance due to availability of large amount of Thorium in the country.
Consequently accelerators now constitute a field of activity in their own right with professional physicists and engineers dedicated to their study, construction and operation. In this talk, salient features of above systems particularly for nuclear energy production will be discussed.
About Dr. Pitamber Singh:
Dr. Pitamber Singh has made an outstanding contribution towards building the 6 Million Volts Folded Tandem Ion Accelerator and many other facilities at BARC. He is a member of the “National Academy of Sciences, India” and several scientific associations. He has been conferred the DAE’s Technical Excellence and Group Achievement awards for his contributions towards indigenous development of the accelerator technology in the country. Presently, he is working on development of High Intensity Proton Accelerator for Accelerator Driven System (ADS)- an important program of India. Dr Singh has more than 300 scientific publications including 50 invited talks both in national and international conferences.
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