Accelerator physics
is an
interdisciplinary
topic of
applied physics
, commonly defined by the intent of designing, building and operating
particle accelerators
. As such, it may be roughly circumscribed as the study of motion, manipulation and observation of
relativistic
charged particle beams
and their interaction with an accelerator structure by
electromagnetic fields
.
The experiments conducted with particle accelerators are not regarded as part of accelerator physics, but belong to their respective fields of interest (
particle physics
,
condensed matter physics
etc.).