Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-shared-by-prelims-and-parts-a-and-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2012/s19/2/a/solution

For a GeV electron, . With m, the stated synchrotron critical frequency formula gives
At the same total beam energy and bend radius, a proton has , and the same supplied formula gives
The ratio is , explaining the strong suppression for protons. The critical-energy formula is an ultrarelativistic approximation, excellent for the electron and only approximate for this moderately relativistic proton. If “5 GeV proton beam” instead denotes kinetic energy, then and the estimate is about eV; the two beam-energy conventions should not be mixed.

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