MSU College of Natural Science Campus Theory Seminar
                  A SCIENCE AT THE EDGE SEMINAR

    
                     Friday, 25 January 2002
            11:30 a.m. Room 224 Physics-Astronomy Bldg.
                 Refreshments served at 11:15 a.m.


                          Martin Berz

              MSU Department of Physics and Astronomy
                              and 
           National Superconducting Cylclotron Laboratory


                  Chaos in Large Accelerators

ABSTRACT:

Present day synchrotron accelerators have to confine beams of 
particles with the help of thousands of magnets for billions of 
revolutions.  The underlying physics, Hamiltonian non-linear dynamics 
and its long term stability, determines the practical feasibility of such 
machines.  We show how, through a combination of methods using 
phase-space maps,  normal form methods and sophisticated self- 
validating numerical algorithms, it is possible to rigorously determine the 
onset of chaoticity in the relevant region of phase-space which then 
determines the long term stability of the particle orbits.