Kinematics

A cyclotron is a device used to accelerate charged particles, like positive ions, using a perpendicular magnetic field and an alternating electric field.
- Electrons cannot be accelerated because their small mass causes them to quickly attain relativistic speeds, making the cyclotron principle ineffective.
- Neutrons, being neutral, do not experience a force in the magnetic field and thus cannot be accelerated in a cyclotron.

The area under an acceleration-time graph over a given time interval represents the change in velocity during that interval.
This follows from the relation: where is the acceleration and is the change in velocity.
The definite integral (or area under the curve) gives the total change in velocity for the specified duration.