Collective Electron Driven Linac for High Energy Physics

A linac design is presented in which an intense ultrarelativistic electron bunch is used to excite fields in a series of cavities and accelerate charged particles. The intense electron bunch is generated in a simple storage ring to have the required transverse and longitudinal dimensions. The bunch is then transferred to the linac. The linac structure can be inexpensively constructed of spacers and washers. The fields in the cells resulting from the bunch passage are calculated using the program BCI. The results show that certain particles within the driving bunch and also trailing particles of any sign charge can be accelerated. With existing electron storage rings, accelerating gradients greater than 16 MV/m are possible. Examples of two accelerators are given: 1) A 30 GeV electron/positron accelerator useful as an injector for a high energy storage ring and 2) a 110 GeV per beam electron-positron collider.