Beam Transport in a Compact Dielectric Wall Accelerator for Proton Therapy

To attain the highest accelerating gradient in the compact dielectric wall (DWA) accelerator, the DWA will be operated in the 'virtual' traveling mode with potentially non-uniform and time-dependent axial accelerating field profiles, especially near the DWA entrance and exit, which makes beam transport challenging. We have established a baseline transport case without using any external lenses. Results of simulations using the 3-D, EM PIC code, LSP indicate that the DWA transport performance meets the medical specifications for proton treatment. Sensitivity of the transport performance to Blumlein block failure will be presented.