The EMMA Non-Scaling FFAG Project: Implications for Intensity Frontier Accelerators

EMMA (Electron Model for Many Applications) is a proof-of-principle demonstration of a non-scaling, fixed- field, alternating gradient accelerator (nsFFAG). Although nsFFAGs are related to cyclotrons and scaling FFAGs, the normal requirement is broken that the orbit radius scales with beam energy at all azimuths, meaning that a large energy variation can be provided in a small magnet aperture at the expense of no longer having a constant betatron tune; this has the potential to reduce the cost, and increase the reliability and flexibility of future intensity-frontier accelerators. We present results of commissioning of this accelerator at Daresbury Laboratory and discuss its merits compared to alternative approaches to delivering high-intensity hadron beams, in particular for use as low-cost c. 1 GeV proton drivers for accelerator-driven subcritical reactors and for the DAEDALUS neutrino project.