Damping Rings
As particles are moving in a closed orbit, the lateral acceleration causes them to emit synchrotron radiation, thereby reducing the size of their momentum vectors (relative to the design orbit) without changing their orientation (ignoring quantum effects for the moment). In longitudinal direction, the loss of particle impulse due to radiation is replaced by accelerating sections (RF cavities) that are installed in the beam path so that an equilibrium is reached at the design energy of the accelerator. Since this is not happening in transverse direction, where the emittance of the beam is only increased by the quantization of radiation losses (quantum effects), the transverse equilibrium emittance of the particle beam will be smaller with large radiation losses, compared to small radiation losses.
Because high orbit curvatures (low curvature radii) increase the emission of synchrotron radiation, damping rings are often small. If long beams with many particle bunches are needed to fill a larger storage ring, the damping ring may be extended with long straight sections.
Read more about this topic: Radiation Damping
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