Electron Linacs for High Energy Physics

The purpose of this article is to introduce some of the basic physical principles underlying the operation of electron linear accelerators (electron linacs). Electron linacs have applications ranging from linacs with an energy of a few MeV, such that the electrons are approximately relativistic, to future electron-positron linear colliders having a collision energy in the several-TeV energy range. For the most part, only the main accelerating linac is treated in this article.