TOP LINAC design

The report describes a linear accelerator for protons named TOP LINAC designed for the TOP (Terapia Oncologica con Protoni, Oncological Protontherapy) project launched by the Italian National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanita', ISS) to explore in collaboration with the biggest Oncological Hospital in Rome (Istituto Regina Elena, IRE) the potentialities of the therapy with accelerated protons and establish guide lines for the application of this new type of radiotherapy in comparison with the more traditional electron and x-rays radiotherapy. The concept of a compact accelerator for protontherapy applications bore within the Italian Hadrontherapy Collaboration (TERA Collaboration) with the aim to diffuse the protontherapy on the National territory. The ISS program plans to use the TOP linac proton beam also for production of PET (Positron Emission Tomography) radioisotopes and radiobiology studies. Official agreements are in course between ISS and ENEA which provides its experience in the industrial and medical accelerators for the design and the construction of the TOP linac. The accelerator that will be the first 3 GHz proton linac in the world, will be composed of a 428.3 MHz 7 Me V RFQ + DTL injector followed by a 7-65 Me V section of a 3 GHz SCDTL structure and a 65 - 200 Me V variable energy SCL 3 GHz structure. In particular the SCDTL section uses a highly innovative accelerating structure patented by ENEA. In this report the clinical and physical requests are discussed and a preliminary design of the whole machine is given