A European Collaboration to Investigate Superconducting Magnets for Next Generation Heavy Ion Therapy

Next generation ion therapy magnets both for gantry and for accelerator (synchrotron) are under investigation in a recently launched European collaboration that, in the frame of the European H2020 HITRI plus and I.FAST programmes, has obtained some funding for work packages on superconducting magnets. Design and technology of superconducting magnets will be developed for ion therapy synchrotron and -especially- gantry, taking as reference beams of 430 MeV/nucleon ions (C-ions) with 10 ¹⁰ ions/pulse. The magnets are about 60–90 mm diameter, 4 to 5 T peak field with a field change of about 0.3 T/s and good field quality. The paper will illustrate the organization of the collaboration and the technical program. Various superconductor options (LTS, MgB ₂ or HTS) and different magnet shapes, like classical CosTheta or innovative Canted CosTheta (CCT), with curved multifunction (dipole and quadrupole), are under evaluation, CCT being the baseline. These studies should provide design inputs for a new superconducting gantry design for existing facilities and, on a longer time scale, for a brand-new hadron therapy centre to be placed in the South East Europe (SEEIIST project).