In an echo of the cluster of breakthrough laser wakefield acceleration experiments in the mid-2000’s, there have been multiple milestone experiments in the past few years demonstrating free electron lasers (FELs) powered by plasma-based accelerators. The smallest lasing wavelength was observed by the SIOM group, 27 nanometers, but more than an order of magnitude in photon energy still remains...
Plasma accelerators offer orders of magnitude more rapid acceleration,
and in turn can be used to reduce the size of accelerators
significantly. The experimentally obtained electron beam quality closes
the gap to conventional linacs and has now reached levels where first
free-electron lasing becomes possible. However, advanced plasma
wakefield accelerators do also open up the possibility...
Laser wakefield electron acceleration has attracted significant attention over the last decades, due to its ability to generate acceleration gradients orders of magnitude greater than those in conventional accelerators. However, in order to realise a multi-GeV laser-driven plasma accelerator stage, the laser pulse must remain focussed through tens of centimetres of low-density plasma. Such...
We present an energy-conserving theory of plasma wakefield in the strongly-nonlinear (“bubble” or “blowout”) regime. Previous phenomenological models [W. Lu et al. PRL 96, 165002 (2006)] were based on using the electron motion equations in plasma and assumptions about the electron sheath on the bubble's boundary. However, they often included fitting parameters and, in general, provided an...
We describe our programme to develop GeV-scale laser-driven plasma accelerators operating at pulse repetition rates in the kHz range. This is based on two novel approaches.
First is the hydrodynamic optical-field-ionized (HOFI) plasma channel. We describe the operation of HOFI channels, and demonstrate that they can guide relativistically-intense pulses through metre-scale channels with axial...
Laser Plasma Accelerators (LPAs), harnessing gigavolt-per-centimeter accelerating fields, can generate high peak current, low emittance and GeV class electron beams paving the way for the realization of future compact free-electron lasers (FELs). Here, we report on the commissioning of the COXINEL beamline driven by the HZDR plasma accelerator and experimental demonstration of FEL lasing at...
The Zettawatt Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System (ZEUS) is a National Science Foundation-funded user facility housed at the University of Michigan. The laser will be capable of producing 3-Petawatt pulses, or may be split to create synchronized 2.5-PW and 0.5-PW pulses. The first user experiments are due to begin in late 2023. This presentation will describe the different capabilities of...
After the introduction of high-quality electron beam generation methods as two-color [1] or the Resonant Multi Pulse Ionization injection (ReMPI) [2], the theory of thermal emittance by C. Schroeder et al. [3] has been used to predict the beam normalized emittance obtainable with those schemes. We [4] recast and extend such a theory, including both higher order terms in the polinomial laser...
L1 ALLEGRA system has been regularly and reliably operating for user experiments offering over 20 weeks of user beamtime per year. The laser generates 15 fs pulses with energy of up to 50 mJ and repetition rate of 1 kHz. Since the laser is completely based on OPCPA pumped by 3 ps pulses, it has inherently very high picosecond temporal contrast. The output pulse energy is limited by the...
In this talk, we would like to introduce the EuPRAXIA Advanced Photon
Source (EuAPS), a betatron-based X-ray source for users, devoted to
several applications. In particular, we would like to focus on the
layout, the expected properties of the source, and its role as one of
the fundamental bricks of the EuPRAXIA project.
The high longitudinal electric fields generated in plasma wakefields are very attractive for a new generation of high gradient plasma based accelerators. On the other hand, the strong transverse fields increase the demand for a proper matching device in order to avoid the spoiling of beam transverse quality. A solution can be provided by the use of a plasma ramp, a region at the plasma...
In this talk, we present a new and efficient methodology for the simulation of fluid models in the framework of wakefield acceleration (WFA). This technique hinges on the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM), a popular numerical scheme used in several contexts of computational fluid dynamics and beyond, and couples it with a finite difference time domain for the solution of electromagnetic fields....
The plasma-modulated plasma accelerator (P-MoPA) scheme [1, 2] provides a route for GeV-scale accelerators operating at kilohertz-repetition-rates driven by picosecond-duration laser pulses. In P-MoPa, trains of pulses are generated from a long, high-energy drive pulse via the spectral modulation caused by a low amplitude wakefield driven by a leading short, low-energy seed pulse. Our...
For plasma-wakefield accelerators to fulfil their potential for cost effectiveness and reduced environmental footprint, it is essential that their energy-transfer efficiency be maximized. A key aspect of this efficiency is the near-complete transfer of energy, or depletion, from the driver electrons to the plasma wake. Achieving full depletion is limited by the process of re-acceleration,...
The collision of ultra-intense laser pulses with solids may initiate processes like current filamentation instability (CFI) and target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA). Studying the interplay of these processes is crucial, as they play an important role in novel particle accelerator concepts and are believed to be present in astrophysical events.
In the scope of this work, laser-solid...
One of the key effects in laser wakefield acceleration is dephasing, whereby the electron beam outruns the accelerating structure created by the sub-luminal driving laser pulse. This process reduces the effectiveness of the accelerator and limits the maximum electron energy achievable with a given laser pulse. Therefore, mitigating dephasing is important in maximising the energy gain and...
The laser system “Bivoj” built on “DiPOLE” cryogenically cooled multi-slab technology (150J / 10Hz / 10ns) has been enhanced by a conversion module for second harmonic frequency generation (95J/10Hz @515nm) with 79% conversion efficiency. This allows the laser to be used as a pump source for short pulse beamlines (CPA or OPCPA) that can be used for efficient particle acceleration. Achieving...
Scaling current ultrashort/ultraintense laser technology, based on Nd-pumped TiSa amplifiers, to the rep-rate and average power required for future laser-driven electron accelerators is ultimately hindered by wall plug efficiency. One of the paths currently pursued to overcome the limits of TiSa technology is based on the usage of long ($\sim\mathrm{ms}$) upper state lifetime materials that...
In this contribution we discuss experimental results that show how plasma ion motion affects a proton drive bunch train and wakefields using the AWAKE experiment. Plasma ions move due to the ponderomotive force of transverse wakefields and lead to an average ion density decrease in the region around the axis. This, in turn, leads to a shift in the local plasma frequency, resulting in a sharp...
The main results of the electron pulse and ultra-high-dose-rate (UHDR) parameter verification simulation studies are reported for the FLASH mode radiobiological treatment. There were reproduced the percentage depth dose (PDD) at energies: 5, 7, 15, 25, 50 and 100 MeV, to Poly-methyl-methacrylate (PMMA) and to water fantom vs the penetration depth. Additionally, the PDD transverse profile was...
Diode laser pumps are a critical technology for advanced accelerators based on plasma acceleration, and essential system components when higher repetition rate operation is needed. They are a significant cost element in larger systems, and there is only a limited number of commercial suppliers who can support the needs of emerging systems and applications.
An overview of progress in research...
Plasma-based accelerators allow to boost the electron beam energy within a few centimeters. Two pioneering experiments [1,2], reporting the observation of self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) driven by plasma-accelerated beams, have already demonstrated their potential use for the realization of ultracompact light sources based on free-electron lasers (FELs).
However, the stochastic...
Positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) is one of the methods for the non-invasive inspection of materials and identification of small-scale defects. PALS presents several unique advantages when compared to other inspection techniques: it works virtually with any type of material (crystalline and amorphous, organic and inorganic) and it can identify even sub-nanometer defects with...
We consider a relativistic witness electron bunch propagating in an ionized gas background of opposite charge, a simplified configuration similar to the one produced in a capillary discharge where a plasma oscillation has been excited by a driving pulse. We assume in the nonlinear regime, the plasma electrons behind the driver are completely expelled and an ellipsoidal cavity filled with ions...
Electron beams of very high energy (50–250 MeV) can potentially produce a more favourable radiotherapy dose distribution compared to state-of-the-art photon-based radiotherapy techniques. To produce an electron beam of sufficiently high energy to allow for a long penetration depth (several cm), very large accelerating structures are needed when using conventional radio-frequency technology,...
We describe a simple scheme, truncated-channel injection, to inject electrons directly into the wakefield driven by a drive pulse guided by an all-optical plasma channel. We use this approach to generate dark-current-free 1.2 GeV, 4.5% relative energy spread electron bunches with 120 TW laser pulses guided in a 110 mm-long hydrodynamic optical-field-ionized (HOFI) plasma channel. Our...
High-brightness RF photo-injectors are crucial for generating high peak current and low transverse emittance electron beams, which are necessary for driving plasma Wake-field acceleration in advanced accelerator concepts and novel radiation sources. To enhance the EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB photo-injector for future upgrades, it is essential to investigate and assess the feasibility of achieving...
Dielectric Assist Accelerating (DAA) structures based on ultralow-loss ceramic are being studied as an alternative to conventional disk-loaded copper cavities. This accelerating structure consists of dielectric disks with irises arranged periodically in metallic structures working under the TM02−𝜋 mode.
Here, the numerical design of an S-band DAA structure for low beta particles, such as...
High-voltage pulsed discharges can produce suitable plasma for wakefield particle acceleration experiments, such as the AWAKE. Using two successive voltage pulses, the first for plasma ignition (up to 60kV of ignition voltage with around 20A of plasma current) followed by a second pulse (currents up to 600A) for plasma heating, it is possible, by taking advantage of the low impedance state...
Recent theoretical advancements propose multiple positron acceleration schemes in plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA). One of the most promising ideas involves the creation of an electron-driven blowout wake within a finite-radius pre-ionized plasma column. This leads to the formation of an elongated region of sheath electrons at the closing of the first wake period capable of accelerating...
The Free-Electron Laser facility of the EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB infrastructure is driven by an electron beam with 1 GeV energy, produced by an X-band normal conducting LINAC followed by a plasma wakefield acceleration stage.
The AQUA beamline aims at delivering variable polarization photons in the 3-4 nm wavelength range by means of out-of-vacuum APPLE-X permanent magnet undulators with 18 mm...
Ultrashort high-peak current electron beams generated from laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) are capable to drive high accelerating gradient plasma wakefield accelerators (PWFAs) operating in high plasma density regime. Implementation of advanced cold-injection schemes in this hybrid platform promises the generation of high brightness electron beams with unprecedented low emittance and...
The goal of this work is to use Laser Wakefield Acceleration (LWFA) based X-ray sources to develop a diagnostic capable of improved target metrology for Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) fuel capsules. We aim to develop a sub-ps, sub-10 micron X-ray source, which is capable not only of imaging ICF fuel capsules with high resolution, but could additionally be deployed for dynamic radiography of...
Plasma wakefield acceleration is nowadays very attractive in terms of accelerating gradient, able to overcome conventional accelerators by orders of magnitude. However, this poses very demanding requirements on the accelerator stability to avoid large instabilities on the final beam energy. In this study we analyze the correlation between the driver-witness distance jitter (due to the RF...
We present a preliminary analytical procedure [1,2] in 4 steps to tailor the initial density of an inhomogenous cold diluted plasma to the laser pulse (both assumed plane-symmetrical) so as to control wave-breakings of the plasma wave and maximize the acceleration of small bunches of electrons self-injected by the first wave-breaking at the density down-ramp. We use an improved fully...
Beam-driven plasma-wakefield acceleration is a promising avenue for the future design of compact linear accelerators with applications in high-energy physics and photon science. Meeting the luminosity and brilliance demands of current users requires the delivery of thousands of bunches per second: many orders of magnitude beyond the current state-of-the-art of plasma-wakefield accelerators,...
Many impressive experimental results in electron acceleration have been achieved using wakefields excited in a plasma. Plasma-wakefield acceleration provides high accelerating gradients and promises compact accelerators of high brightness and high-energy electron beams. Future applications of plasma-wakefield accelerators, in particular, particle colliders and free-electron lasers strongly...
Polarised beams are indispensable for many experiments in particle, atomic
and nuclear physics where spin-dependent processes are to be studied. Unlike
RF accelerators, Laser-Plasma-Accelerators (LPA) are not limited by material
breakdown and can therefore support thousand times higher accelerating fields,
which make them a promising alternative to conventional accelerators.
The LEAP...
The capability to sustain high accelerating gradients ($\sim$ 100s GV/m) in plasmas leads to electron bunches at GeV-scale energies in short distances, making Laser-Plasma Acceleration (LPA) a promising approach to high gradient particle accelerators. Among injection schemes, ionization injection is one of the most practical with outstanding numerical results (see ReMPI acceleration).
An...
The AWAKE experiment at CERN makes use of a high-energy proton beam to drive plasma wakefields. The long drive bunch self-modulates in the plasma, resulting in a train of microbunches. However, nonlinear effects shift the plasma resonance, causing the wakefield amplitude to saturate after only a fraction of the microbunch train. In this work, we use particle-in-cell simulations to show that...
EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB will be a new multi-disciplinary user-facility that is currently under construction at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati of the INFN in the framework of the EuPRAXIA collaboration.
The electrons acceleration will be provided through an X-band normal conducting linac followed by a plasma module from WakeField Acceleration (PWFA).
Downstream, the beam will drive two FEL...
Despite the huge potential of laser-driven proton acceleration to provide compact sources of MeV proton beams suitable for a variety of applications, several factors hamper their wider adoption including: the challenges associated with operating these accelerators at high-repetition rate; low shot-to-shot stability; and large beam divergence which leads to rapidly decreasing proton flux with...
We describe a simple scheme, truncated-channel injection, to inject electrons directly into the wakefield driven by a drive pulse guided by an all-optical plasma channel. We use this approach to generate dark-current-free 1.2 GeV, 4.5% relative energy spread electron bunches with 120 TW laser pulses guided in a 110 mm-long hydrodynamic optical-field-ionized (HOFI) plasma channel. Our...
Dielectric Assist Accelerating (DAA) structures based on ultralow-loss ceramic are being studied as an alternative to conventional disk-loaded copper cavities. This accelerating structure consists of dielectric disks with irises arranged periodically in metallic structures working under the TM02−𝜋 mode.
Here, the numerical design of an S-band DAA structure for low beta particles, such as...
The realization of a compact X-ray free-electron laser for pump-probe applications is a popular topic in the research of laser wakefield acceleration. The 3D charge density is closely related with the 6D brightness that primarily determines the lasing process in the undulator. However, this parameter has not been experimentally measured in previous studies. We measured the 3D charge density of...
Multi-pulse laser plasma wakefield accelerators (MP-LWFA) provide an alternative way towards compact and kiloherz (kHz) operation of Gigavolts (GeV) electron acceleration for advanced light sources and future particle accelerators. The aim of this research is to understand whether or not spectral and temporal structures of pico-second (ps) long multi-pulses can be characterised with the latest...
The interaction between relativistic intensity laser pulses and near-critical density targets has been sought after to increase the efficiency of laser-plasma energy coupling, particularly for proton
acceleration. To achieve this density regime for high repetition rate applications, one approach is to use gas targets, provided that stringent target density profile requirements are met,...
The longitudinal profile of ultra-short electron bunches from Laser wakefield accelerators (LWFA) intricately depends on the ultrafast injection dynamics and laser-electron beam interaction during acceleration. Detailed knowledge of these electron bunch temporal profile is critical for the design of future table-top x-ray light-sources, as well as for the characterization of ultrashort...
EuPRAXIA is the first European project that develops a dedicated particle accelerator research infrastructure based on novel plasma acceleration concepts and laser technology and one of the projects on the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Roadmap of 2021. The EuPRAXIA preparatory phase project is now underway, with the beam driven site at LNF-INFN in Frascati under...
In labs worldwide, 100TW laser systems dominate systematic studies on laser-driven accelerators and secondary sources. The stable LWFA performance that has been achieved on such systems is vital for meaningful parameter studies and application-driven experiments. However, a recent upgrade of our previously highly stable 100 TW ATLAS laser system at LMU with a multi-PW capable final amplifier...
In 2013 the concept of dielectric or nanophotonic laser acceleration was experimentally demonstrated. Rather simple dielectric gratings with their periodicity matched to the electron velocity, in the same manner as the original Widerøe linear accelerator almost century ago, only driven with light. Now, a decade later, we can demonstrate what one might call a dielectric laser accelerator,...
Many applications require a (quasi) continuous source of ions and neutrons operating in a 24/7 mode. Recent developments of few-cycle laser systems with an average optical power of 100 W have laid the technological basis for the development of such a particle source.
In the experimental series in ELI-ALPS, Hungary, first we have demonstrated that ions can be efficiently accelerated above 1MeV...
The possibilities for experimental research on laser-particle acceleration strongly depend on the available laser and laboratory infrastructure. The Helmholtz-Institute Jena and the Institute of Optics and Quantum Electronics in Jena, Germany, currently operate two individual high-power laser systems (JETI and POLARIS), which differ in their laser parameters. In the future, these two laser...
We present an experimental demonstration of a single-shot, non-destructive electron beam diagnostic based on detecting the ionized particles generated by the passage of the primary beam through a low density pulsed gas sheet.
Efficient detection of the ionization events, coupled with a flexible electrostatic column design, allows the retrieval of information on beam charge, centroid...
Intense laser fields interact very differently with micrometric rough surfaces than with flat objects. The interaction features high laser energy absorption and increased emission of MeV electrons, ions, and of hard x-rays.
I will report on how we revealed the underlying reason for this phenomenon by irradiating isolated, micrometric, translationally-symmetric objects by 20 TW laser pulses....
Here we give a brief overview of the development of DPSSL-based high-average power laser drivers for plasma accelerators in CLF. We will describe the design of the Extreme Photonics Applications Centre (EPAC): a unique facility dedicated for the exploitation of the applications of plasma accelerators. Future upgrade paths for EPAC, especially in repetition rate, would be discussed.
The viability of next generation TeV-class electron-positron colliders based on staging of independently-powered plasma-based accelerators relies on the possibility of accelerating high-charge bunches to high energy with high efficiency and high accelerating gradient, while maintaining a small energy spread and emittance. Achieving a small energy spread with high efficiency requires employing...
We report on experimental observation on periodic modulation in the energy spectrum of laser accelerated proton beams. Interestingly, theoretical model and two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations, in good agreement with the experimental finding, indicated that such modulation is associated with periodic modulated electron density induced by transverse instability. These results, may have...
Beam parameter optimization in accelerators involves multiple, sometimes competing objectives. Condensing these individual objectives into a single figure of merit unavoidably results in a bias towards particular outcomes. Finding an optimal objective definition then requires operators to iterate over many possible objective weights and definitions, a process that can take many times longer...
CEBAF is a recirculating CW SRF accelerator running polarized electron beams at 12 GeV to fixed targets for nuclear physics study. A very efficient upgrade proposal has been developed for energy increase to 22 GeV without any additional SRF, based on increase of the number of recirculations using new FFA permanent magnet arcs. The polarized positron beam capability, synergistic to the energy...
Highly polarised, high current electron bunches from compact laser-plasma accelerators are sought after for numerous application. However, current proposals to produce these beams suffer from intrinsic limitations to the reproducibility, charge, beam shape and final polarisation degree. We propose colliding pulse injection as a technique for the generation of highly polarised electron bunches...
We present the preliminary results of proton acceleration from tens of nanometer thick plastic foils that are irradiated by a $10^{21}$ W/cm$^2$ laser pulse with 25 fs pulse duration and 1.8 $\mu$m focal spot size (FWHM). We consider the effect of circular (CP) and linear (LP) polarization on the proton energy spectra. For CP we observe an optimum in the proton energy in dependence of the...
The kilohertz Plasma Accelerator Consortium (kPAC) is developing GeV-scale, laser-driven plasma accelerators, utilizing highly efficient, diode-pumped lasers with kHz repetition rate. The concept is based on the plasma-modulated plasma accelerator (P-MoPA). In such an accelerator, a joule-class pulse with picosecond duration is first spectrally modulated by the wake of a second,...
High-brightness e-beams with duration of a few hundreds of attoseconds can be employed as direct probes, as drivers of Compton/Thomson X/γ or single-spike FEL sources. We show, by means of theory and quasi-3D-PIC simulations, that GeV scale electron beam sources having duration widely tunable in the interval 100−2000 as, with 6D brightness exceeding 10^17A/m^2/0.1% and normalized emittances...
We present our recent findings on laser efficient laser ion acceleration with various target systems.
One target system is based on a Paul-trap, which allows us to position sub-focus sized spherical targets (1 µm diameter) with sub-micrometer precision into the focus.
The other target system are thin plastic foils(with 10 - 200 nm thickness).
Experiments were conducted at the JeTi laser...
Pulsed laser sources have a plethora of applications, many of which require or benefit from high average power. This presentation gives an overview of modern laser and optics development at the Fraunhofer ILT in Aachen for various applications in industry, energy, health, and science. These include robust laser systems tailored for space applications, the upscaling of femtosecond lasers to the...
In this talk, we explore recent results on optimal tuning of beam parameters of laser-plasma accelerators (LPA) at the LUX experiment. Precise control over electron beam parameters is essential for realizing the wide range of applications projected for LPAs. However, the complexity of the laser-plasma interaction makes tuning challenging, often leading to suboptimal outcomes. To address this...
The Advanced Wakefield Experiment (AWAKE) relies on proton-driven wakefields created in a laser-ionized plasma to accelerate electrons. Accurate measurement and control of the optics, trajectory and timing of the three beams—proton, laser and electron—is a fundamental requirement for successful operation of the facility. Continuous advances in both instrumentation and methods are necessary to...
We study the stability of plasma wakes and the properties of density-downramp injection in an electron-driven plasma accelerator in the blowout regime. As shown by particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations, the accelerating structure remains highly stable until the moment some electrons of the driver reach almost zero energy, which corresponds to the best interaction length for optimal...
The high-intensity iP2 beamline at the BELLA PW laser enables frontier capabilities in High Energy Density Science, including accessing new regimes of ion acceleration. This system provides a focal spot of ~3 μm diameter, resulting in peak intensities of >5×1021 W/cm2. The 1 Hz pulse repetition rate, if paired with replenishable target systems, can increase the particle...
In laser-driven particle acceleration the choice of the target material can have a large impact on the acceleration process. Therefore, a laser-driven proton acceleration experiment was conducted at the POLARIS laser system, where liquid micro-droplets made of water or ethylene glycole were used as targets.
Droplet chains were created by a pressurized capillary nozzle, which was made to...
High peak current electron beams from laser wakefield accelerators (LWFAs) can excite a high amplitude plasma wave in a subsequent plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) stage. The intrinsic short duration of these driver beams enables a new operational regime of PWFAs at plasma densities above $10^{18}$cm$^{-3}$ which is important for the acceleration of ultra-short and ultra-low emittance...
The EuAPS project (EuPRAXIA Advanced Photon Source) aims at realizing an X-ray photon source for users applications. The photons will be produced by betatron radiation mechanism inside a laser plasma accelerator, exploiting an internal injection scheme. The source will produce short pulses of photons in the spectral range 1 - 10 keV for a wide set of applications ranging from imaging to...
Beam-driven plasma-wakefield acceleration has the potential to produce accelerating fields up to three orders of magnitude stronger than those in traditional accelerators using RF cavities. However, in recent years, an efficiency-instability relation has been proposed, which limits the energy transfer from the wake to the trailing bunch that can be achieved without causing detrimental...
The Extreme Photonics Applications Centre (EPAC) is an ultra-short pulse, petawatt laser facility under construction on the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Site in the UK. In Experimental Area 1, it will deliver stable electron beams at a rep rate of 10 Hz for industrial and academic users via laser plasma wakefield acceleration. Simulation studies have been performed in order to understand the...
High-charge energetic positron beams are a useful tool for probing the Standard Model of particle physics, however, the large scale and cost of accelerators used to conventionally produce such beams (e.g., LEP) have led to the search for smaller and cheaper alternatives. One candidate for $e^--e^+$ pair creation is to collide an ultra-relativistic electron beam with a high-intensity laser...
The level of maturity of laser-based ion accelerators is opening the path for their use in real-life applications. Particularly promising is the in-situ production of short-lived radionuclides for medical imaging, with techniques such as Positron-Emission-Tomography (PET). However, the large activities required (>10MBq for pre-clinical, >200MBq for clinical) are well-above those achievable...
The Compact Linear Accelerator for Research and Applications (CLARA) is an ultra-bright 250 MeV electron beam test facility under development at STFC Daresbury Laboratory. Originally conceived to test advanced Free Electron Laser schemes, CLARA has become a unique facility for user-led experiments in a wide range of disciplines, including advanced accelerator concepts.
Here we report on the...
When a high intensity electron beam passes through a structured nano target, the created solid-state density plasma can support ultra-high accelerating gradients on the order of 1 TeV/m to 10 TeV/m with similarly strong focusing fields. This process may thus lead to an acceleration method with extremely high single-stage energy gains for electron or muon beams. Additionally, simulations...
An overview is presented of the Oxford Plasma Accelerator Laboratory (OPAL), which houses a 600mJ (shortly to be upgraded to 1 J), 10Hz, 45fs Ti:Sapphire laser, and a suite of diagnostics tailored to the development of channel-guided laser-plasma accelerators. A channel is formed with a ~100mJ “channel-forming” beam, focused by an axicon. This channel guides the "drive" beam, thereby...
We present first results for a parameter study including transverse instability in the acceleration stages of HALHF, a novel electron positron collider concept combining plasma wakefield acceleration and mature RF acceleration to reach centre of mass energies of 250 GeV. This study is a preliminary extension of the previous studies that indicated promising performance, by including transverse...
The SPARC-LAB test facility at LNF (Frascati) is equipped with a high-brightness photo injector used to explore and develop advanced beam manipulation techniques. This photo-injector can generate high brightness two electron bunches (witness and driver) needed for plasma acceleration. To obtain these, the cathode of the photo-injector at SPARC-LAB is illuminated by a train of laser pulses,...
Curved plasma channels have been proposed to guide intense lasers for various applications, such as x-ray laser emission, compact synchrotron radiation, and multistage laser wakefield acceleration. In this talk, we will introduce our recent study on a carefully designed experiment showing evidences of intense laser guidance and wakefield acceleration in a centimeter-scale curved plasma...
Plasma-wakefield accelerators produce relativistic, micron-scale electron bunches. The sub-micrometer internal distribution of these bunches, which critically influences gain in free-electron lasers or particle yield in colliders, has proven elusive to characterize. Through analysis of multi-spectral images of coherent optical transition radiation (COTR) that laser-wakefield-accelerated...
The FACET-II facility at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory conducts a broad science program based on the interaction of low-emittance high-current 10 GeV electron beams with lasers, plasmas and solids. FACET-II operates as a National User Facility while engaging a broad User community to develop and execute experimental proposals that advance the development of plasma wakefield...
The notion of utilizing very high energy electrons (VHEE) in the 200MeV range for treating deep-seated cancerous tumors has recently gained traction in the particle accelerator community. As a result, numerous technical advances aimed at developing medically sound conventional and non-conventional electron accelerators have emerged. Since late 2022, the European Innovation Council has been...
The ALBUS technology platform tackles the challenges arising from the unique properties of laser-driven ion beams. The central part of ALBUS is the advanced pulsed electromagnet technology adapted from high-field laboratory know-how in combination with custom-designed current pulse generators, with a repetition rate matching the pulsed nature of a common LPA source, aiming towards 1 Hz.
The...
We present a novel, compact, low-emittance positron source that is compatible with existing PWFA and LWFA facilities (https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.08368). The device is based on a Penning-Malmberg trap that collects and cools positrons. The resulting beam has low thermal emittance (less than 1 micron), but it is magnetized and the bunch length is cm-scale. We describe a method for extracting and...
Capturing the target behavior during a high-intensity laser-solid interaction is crucial
to understanding the interplay of fundamental processes such as ionization, collisions, and
plasma kinetics. Furthermore, the pre-plasma evolution caused by the laser's rising edge is key for enhancing the properties of the accelerated particles and secondary X-ray sources. We present experimentally and...
The ultrashort nature of laser-driven proton bursts allows, with appropriate arrangements, to perform single pulse irradiation of cellular samples at dose rates reaching 1010 Gy/s. Motivated by the FLASH radiotherapy context, there is significant interest in assessing any divergence in biological response at these ultra-high dose rates (UHDR) from the behaviour observed in irradiations under...
Computational modeling is essential to the exploration and design of advanced particle accelerators. The modeling of laser-plasma acceleration and interaction can achieve predictive quality for experiments if adequate resolution, full geometry and physical effects are included. Here, we report on the significant evolution in fully relativistic full-3D modeling of conventional and advanced...
The Full Energy Beam Exploitation (FEBE) beamline and experimental hutch at CLARA will combine a 250 MeV FEL quality electron beam with a 100 TW class laser and will support exploitation of the CLARA beam for advanced acceleration experiments and research. This includes plasma based and structure based acceleration, with laser and beam drivers. FEBE has been designed to provide flexibility in...
The use of polarized $^3$He ions in storage rings opens a new window to investigate nuclear forces, because nuclear polarized $^3$He ions can be regarded as an ideal substitute for polarized neutron beams. Polarized $^3$He$^{2+}$ ions were used in the 1960’s, but either the nuclear polarization or the intensity of the ion sources was rather small. Numerous efforts to improve the performance of...
We report on electron beam collimation using a passive plasma lens, integrated directly into a laser wakefield accelerator stage operating in the high-charge regime. The lens is created by reshaping the gas density profile of a super-sonic jet at the beam’s exit side through an obstacle mounted above the jet. It reduces the beam’s divergence by a factor of two, to below 1 mrad...
In laser-driven particle acceleration the choice of the target material can have a large impact on the acceleration process. Therefore, a laser-driven proton acceleration experiment was conducted at the POLARIS laser system, where liquid micro-droplets made of water or ethylene glycole were used as targets.
Droplet chains were created by a pressurized capillary nozzle, which was made to...
Dielectric Wakefield Acceleration (DWA) is a promising technology with potential applications in future accelerators. To facilitate DWA research and experimentation, we have developed Dielectric Wakefield Calculator and Tracker (DiWaCAT), a versatile python and C++ based code. DiWaCAT enables rapid and accurate 3D wakefield calculations in circular and planar dielectric-lined waveguides (DLWs)...
Laser-driven (LD) proton sources are of interest for various applications due to their ability to produce short proton bunches with high charge and low emittance. These sources can be used in biological studies investigating improvements to radiation cancer therapy. Recently, the differential sparing effect on normal tissues versus tumors using the delivery of high radiation doses >10 Gy at...
Novel particle accelerators based on plasma technology allow a drastic reduction in size, due to the high accelerating and focusing fields established inside plasmas. In this regard, we present a compact gas-filled plasma discharge capillary for particle accelerators applications, including staged wakefield acceleration and active plasma lensing. A first design of the plasma source is...
The effect of density ramps and plasma mirrors on electron beam divergence was measured in the context of staged laser wakefield acceleration. Termination of an acceleration stage was found to increase total beam divergence from 3.38 $\pm$ 0.07 mrad to 6.13 $\pm$ 0.13 mrad, and the effect was observed to persist at high energies, up to 2.2 GeV. Additionally, shot-to-shot fluctuations in...
Electron–photon scattering is one of the most fundamental mechanisms in electrodynamics, underlying laboratory and astrophysical sources of high-energy X-rays. After a century of studies, it is only recently that sufficiently high electromagnetic field strengths have been available to experimentally study the nonlinear regime of the scattering in the laboratory. This can act as a new...
Current Filamentation Instability (CFI) can occur in plasma wakefield accelerators as well as in astrophysical media. This instability takes place when a charged particle bunch streams through a plasma with skin depth smaller than the bunch transverse size, so that the plasma return current flows within the bunch. Repulsion between opposite currents tends to reinforce any initial transverse...
The electromagnetic Particle-In-Cell (PIC) code WarpX has been developed within the the U.S. Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project toward the modeling of plasma accelerators for future high-energy physics colliders on Exascale Supercomputers. We will present the latest algorithmic advances that were developed for first-principles modeling of plasma-based accelerators with higher...
We discuss relativistic laser interaction with overdense plasmas, where the laser pulse is incident parallel to the plasma surface, the so-called “peeler” regime [1]. The laser pulse impinges on an edge of a tape. The edge allows for an efficient conversion of the laser pulse into a surface plasma wave (SPW). The SPW peels off and accelerates electrons (tens of nC) from the target skin layer....
We present an experimental and simulated investigation of helium plasma glow light dynamics and its application to the physical measurements of a plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA) plasma source. We model the plasma formation with a split-step Fourier optical propagation code and a particle-in-cell (PIC) code. We then simulate the plasma expansion dynamics using a plasma fluid code. Using a...
Acceleration of proton beams in laser-driven plasma waves is challenging, owing to the difficulty of trapping the slow velocity protons in the relativistic plasma wave. In a laser-plasma accelerator, the phase velocity of the plasma wave is approximately the group velocity of the laser driver propagating in the underdense plasma. Due to their high rest mass, protons only reach comparable...
Plasma accelerators are emerging as formidable and innovative technology for the creation of table-top devices thanks to the possibility to sustain several GV/m accelerating gradients. Recently the research activity of the SPARC_LAB collaboration has been mainly devoted to heightening and stabilize the energy gain of a beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator. Beside the upgrade of the SPARC...
The experiment E-320 installed at SLAC FACET-II aims to study QED in the strong field regime.
By colliding 10 GeV, high-quality electron beams with 10 TW NIR laser pulses it is aspired to probe the QED critical (Schwinger) intensity of 10$^{29}$ W$\text{cm}^{-2}$ in the electron rest frame.
In this regime, characterized by $\chi = E^*/E_{\text{cr}} \gtrsim 1$, quantum corrections to...
Scalable plasma sources R&D for the AWAKE experiment at CERN focus on two technologies as alternatives to the existing laser-ionised rubidium vapor plasma source: the Helicon Plasma Source (HPS) and the Discharge Plasma Source (DPS). As a proof of principle of such alternative sources, a 10 m long DPS has been designed, built and tested with a 400 GeV proton beam over a 3 weeks run in the...
Laser-driven proton acceleration can provide ultra-short, high-charge, low-emittance bunches. Despite extensive research, current laser-ion sources fall short of delivering the desired energies for pivotal applications, like proton tumor therapy. Moreover, the generated non-relativistic beams cannot be injected into high-$\beta$ accelerator elements for further acceleration and use in...
Gas jets are an attractive technology for high repetition rate LWFA as they are less prone to damage and therefore last longer than other options. However, it has proved difficult to tailor the gas density profile with jets as for capillaries and cells which has restricted their utility. We report on preliminary experimental measurements of a novel gas jet design suitable for density downramp...
Nowadays laser-plasma-based wakefield accelerators are capable to deliver GeV-level femtosecond electron bunches crucial for emerging applications in medicine, industry, and fundamental science. Many of these applications critically require the precise characterization of the accelerated electron bunch as well as the plasma wakefield that largely affects the bunch's quality. Advanced...
The demonstration of a multi-stage scheme is one of the milestones to make laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) a scalable acceleration mechanism to reach high energies. The design of such complex scheme will require advanced multi physics modeling of the different components of the machine and integrating data-driven approaches into the exploration of the parameter space of interest.
A...
The passage of an electron bunch through a conducting foil has a focusing effect from the Near-Field Coherent Transition Radiation (NF-CTR) generated on the surfaces. Passing through multiple foils may allow to focus bunches down to solid densities and generate collimated gamma-rays with micrometer source sizes and conversion efficiencies exceeding 10%. The possibility offered by this scheme...
The development of plasma sources that enable the reliable and reproducible generation of high quality beams is key to moving closer to our goal of powering real-world applications with laser-plasma accelerators. An ideal design must feature a robust injection method with precise control over the trapped phase space, allow for tunability of the subsequent acceleration process through density...
Exascale computing has recently become a reality. PIConGPU has paved the way to accelerating plasma simulations across compute platforms using the Alpaka framework. These capabilities not only enables conducting high-fidelity parameter scans of start-to-end simulations modeling experiments at full 3D3V geometry, but also make it possible to include additional physics.
However, experience...
Since they have been proposed, laser-plasma accelerators have interested the scientific community for their ability to generate electric fields exceeding the ones of Linacs and RF cavities. Several efforts have been made in order to produce monochromatic electron beams and to increase their maximum energy, often at the expense of the charge. However, some applications like femtosecond...
X-rays production through betatron radiation emission from electron bunches is a valuable resource for several research fields. The EuAPS (EuPRAXIA Advanced Photon Sources) project, within the framework of the EuPRAXIA project, aims to provide 1-10 keV photons (soft X-rays) using a compact plasma based system designed to exploit self-injection processes that occur in highly nonlinear...
Numerical simulations of laser-plasma acceleration in the non-linear regime require an accurate modelling of the laser driving the plasma waves. To reconstruct the transverse laser field distribution from fluence measurements, a fast and flexible field reconstruction method based on the Gerchberg-Saxton Algorithm with Hermite-Gauss Modes Decomposition (GSA-MD) has been developped [2].
The...
Efforts towards the next generation of compact accelerators based on plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) are aimed at enabling their application in various fields, including basic research, medicine, and industrial uses. To achieve this goal, significant focus is directed towards controlling the plasma creation process, ensuring the development of a time-jitter free channel, and maintaining...
Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) is a novel numerical approach for simulating of Plasma WakeField Acceleration (PWFA) processes. In this talk, we employ the LBM to investigate the influence of temperature on plasma waves. Thermal effects can be relevant, for example, in PWFA processes with a high repetition rate, which holds significant importance for various PWFA applications. By utilizing LBM,...
Particle acceleration in wakefields excited in a plasma medium is one of the prime candidates to complement or even replace conventional radiofrequency accelerators in future accelerator facilities due to the far superior acceleration gradients achievable in plasma. In contrast to conventional acceleration techniques, which routinely supply experiments with up to 100’s of thousands of bunches...
The relativistic interaction of short pulsed lasers or electrons with plasma has recently led to the birth of a new generation of femtosecond X-ray sources. Radiations with properties similar to those that can be observed from a wiggler or undulator, can be generated by the oscillations induced in the excited plasma by electrons (PWFA) or by lasers (LWFA), making plasma an interesting medium...
Betatron radiation from laser wakefield accelerators is a powerful X-ray source, proven useful in several applications, e.g. in medical imaging and tomography, X-ray absorption spectroscopy for warm dense matter among others. However, due to the large X-ray divergence typically on the order of tens of mrad, an effective beam transport to the sample and subsequent detection becomes challenging...
The Draco laboratory at HZDR is a versatile, multi-arm and multi-target-area facility, consisting of several, independent subsystems. The lack of an overarching DAQ is balanced by interfaces of the subsystems and custom inter-linking agents. We present recent progress of implementing such software agents, connecting to the center’s electronic lab documentation system. First, manual logging of...
We present the results of an experiment at the POLARIS laser system (at $1030\,$nm) using an off-harmonic optical probe, in which the laser-plasma interaction with water micro-droplets was investigated. In contrast to experiments with thin foils, the spherical symmetry of droplets facilitates a direct imaging of the plasma expansion process using shadowgraphy. In the experimental setup, a jet...
The propagation of particle beams through plasma can give rise to instabilities, relevant for astrophysical and laboratory systems. For ultrarelativistic beams, the oblique two-stream instability (OTSI) generally prevails the early beam-plasma interaction. For conditions relevant to the E305 experiment, which is devoted to study such beam-plasma instabilities with the FACET-II facility at...
We investigate the operation regime and performance of the Plasma-Modulated Plasma Accelerator (P-MoPA), a new approach offering the potential for high-repetition-rate, GeV-scale laser plasma accelerators (LPA) driven by picosecond-duration laser pulses [Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 184801 (2021)]. P-MoPA uses a plasma modulator stage, which introduces a spectral modulation to a picosecond pulse from...
Plasma targetry design for PALLAS experiment relies on numerical PIC parametric studies, computational fluid dynamic studies and an experimental test bench equipped with plasma density profile diagnostics, density measurement and plasma species spatial distribution for target charecterisation.
We discuss construction of surrogate model of PALLAS, based on 15000 simulations performed for...
We present the conceptual design of an alternative injector system based on laser-plasma accelerator technology, to deliver high-quality electron bunches to PETRA IV – the future 4th generation synchrotron light source at DESY. The design consists of a laser-plasma accelerator to produce electron bunches at 6 GeV with state-of-the-art energy spread and stability, and a X-band energy compressor...
Laser WakeField Accelerators (LWFA) are a promising alternative for many industrial and medical applications. Despite significant progress, the use of LWFAs for real-world applications requires improvements in beam and transport quality. LWFAs beams differ from those studied in conventional accelerators. This calls for a dedicated study of transport lines for laser plasma acceleration. The aim...
Recent progress in laser and accelerator technology opens new possibilities to investigate the largely unexplored strong-field quantum electrodynamics (SFQED) regime where electron-positron pairs can be created directly from light-vacuum fluctuations. When a high charge, ultra-relativistic electron beam collides with a solid density plasma, the beam self-fields are reflected, partly or fully,...
Because the brightness delivered by coherent light sources - such as free electron lasers (FELs) - grows with the interaction distance, they can be several km long (e.g., LCLS). Making FELs more compact while keeping their brightness, could open unprecedented research and applications to university-scale laboratories. Here, compact plasma accelerators could play a major role, but so far they...
Nanophotonic laser acceleration is a fast-evolving, emerging field aimed at providing a solution to the miniaturization of electron accelerators, down to the chip-scale. Although the average gradients are still limited by the material breakdown threshold (up to ~10 GV/m), this technology currently already offers acceleration of superb-quality single-electron pulses (normalized emittance ~100...
High-energy, spin-polarized particles are of great interest for a variety of applications like deep-inelastic scattering for the investigation of the proton nuclear structure or fusion, where the use of polarized reactants can increase the fusion cross-section. Acceleration of such particles via laser-plasma interaction can prove to be difficult, as the target needs to be pre-polarized. This...
Currently, the 10 PW experimental area is under commissioning with the first shot being fired on April 13. The experimental campaign started at the end of last year when the 10 PW laser beam was delivered to the interaction chamber with the short focal parabolic mirror. The laser is a Ti:sapphire system with a central wavelength of 810nm and a pulse duration of about 24fs. The best laser spot...
Accelerating particles to high energies with high efficiency and beam quality is crucial in developing accelerator technologies. While particle acceleration in plasmas has made important progress for electrons, identifying a reliable plasma acceleration technique for positrons would pave the way to a linear collider for high-energy physics applications.
Here, we show that a tradeoff...
The emittance of an electron bunch is a fundamental property, which characterizes its quality in terms of applications. Nowadays, electron beams from laser wakefield accelerators have matured to even drive free electron lasers. Characterizing these beams in terms of emittance is still challenging, as single-shot measurements are required. However, widely used techniques like a pepper-pot mask...
Despite the great advances that have been made in beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) in the past decade in terms of acceleration gradient, efficiency, and beam quality preservation, so far the repetition rates of PWFAs were limited to a few Hz. In contrast, user facilities based on conventional acceleration technology routinely supply 1,000’s of bunches to 100’s of thousands (1...
RadiaBeam, in collaboration with UCLA, SLAC, and Amplitude Lasers, is developing a compact tunable ICS gamma ray source for industrial, medical, and security applications. The entire system is designed to be transportable in a standard cargo container, requiring minimizing longitudinal footprints of the individual components. To this end, a compact C-band hybrid photoinjector was developed,...
In this presentation I shall review recent developments in laser technology for high average power drivers for LWFA, concentrating on coherent combination of fibre systems. This shows great promise for achieving high repetition rate, high power pulses with wall plug efficiencies in the tens of percent. I shall also outline plans for LWFA experiments at the upgraded CLARA facility at the...
Plasma wakefield acceleration revolutionized the field of particle accelerators by generating gigavolt-per-centimeter fields and paved the way toward the development of compact Free-Electron Lasers.
To achieve such large accelerations in a beam-driven plasma accelerator it is necessary to focus the driver bunch to increase its density and, at the same time, transversely match the witness the...
High-brightness RF photo-injectors are crucial for generating high peak current and low transverse emittance electron beams, which are necessary for driving plasma Wake-field acceleration in advanced accelerator concepts and novel radiation sources. To enhance the EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB photo-injector for future upgrades, it is essential to investigate and assess the feasibility of achieving...
Plasma acceleration enables the acceleration of electrons to high energies over short distances as high electric fields on the order of 100 GV/m can be sustained in plasma. A precise knowledge of these fields is necessary for the stable and reliable operation of plasma accelerators. We report on a noninvasive method applying Thomson scattering to measure the evolution of the electron beam...
Joule-class femtosecond lasers are being developed to increase repetition rates from current values of a few Hertz to kiloHertz rates and beyond with multi-kW average power. This is critical to enable precision feedback and control required to make the next steps in performance and to enable applications of accelerators, photon sources and future particle colliders. Coherent combination of...
Development of internal injection methods in beam-driven plasma accelerators (PWFAs) is a crucial task toward high-quality low-emittance bunch generation and improved control over bunch parameters for quality-demanding applications like free-electron lasers. For this, ultrashort high peak current electron beams are required to drive a PWFA in the blowout regime which enables trapping of the...
Laser plasma accelerators have seen an incredible development over the 2 past decades, leading to production of high electron energy close to 10 GeV. Both performance and reliability can be further improved thanks to the latest generation multi-PW lasers like the 10 PW laser of ELI-NP having performed its first shots on target few months ago. Data about pulse measurements at focal spot will be...
A long driver forming a decelerating plateau in a plasma wakefield is required for maximizing the acceleration efficiency and energy gain of a witness beam. Maximizing the efficiency of the acceleration process by injecting a large witness charge, requires a tailored, long witness beam creating a beam-loaded plateau in the accelerating field. As a consequence, in the case of the highest...
Recently, free electron lasing at UV wavelength has been demonstrated by deploying the COXINEL beamline driven by HZDR plasma accelerator in a seeded configuration[1]. Further control and optimization of such an FEL radiation require full knowledge of strongly-coupled multivariate parameters involved in laser plasma acceleration, electron beam transport and radiation generation. For this...
Ultrashort pulse laser systems operational in large scale facilities like ELI are heavily booked for secondary source developments and user experiments. The requirement for scientific and technological developments related to high average power laser-matter interactions, like target systems, diagnostics, etc., calls for frequent experimental testing with appropriate laser sources.
Our...
Inter-stage distances and components in multistage PWFA concepts are among the biggest potential contributors to the total accelerator length and may strongly reduce the average gradient of a plasma based accelerator.
Here, we discuss a concept to optimize inter-plasma
distances by drive-beam coupling in the temporal domain
and gating the accelerator via a femtosecond ionization laser.
The E300 experiment at FACET-II on PWFA relies on electron and X-ray/γ-ray detectors to measure the beam dynamics and assess its matching in plasma, with the aim of preserving the beam quality, one of the most important milestone for the field. The plasma accelerator was operated in a self-ionized hydrogen plasma. The electron beam had a large enough peak current and density to trigger some...
HELPMI is a 2-year project, subsidized by the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration, conducted by GSI, HI Jena and HZDR (lead). The aim is to start the development of a F.A.I.R. data standard for experimental data of the entire laser-plasma (LPA) community. Such standard does not yet exist. It will facilitate management and analysis of usually quite heterogeneous experimental data and logs by rich...
Ultrahigh-intensity lasers and laser-driven particle accelerators made rapid progress towards becoming commercial tools. [Tau Systems Inc.][1] is working to bring laser-plasma acceleration into the commercial sphere by leveraging expertise in laser physics, laser-driven plasma, conventional accelerators, and data science. Major challenges facing future LWFA-based commercial systems are...
Energy-transfer efficiency is an important quantity in plasma-wakefield acceleration, especially for applications that demand high average power. Normally, this efficiency is measured using an electron spectrometer; an invasive method that provides an energy-transfer efficiency averaged over the full length of the plasma accelerator. We present an experimental demonstration of a novel...
The Extreme Light in Intensity, Time, and Space (X-lites) Network promotes collaboration around the world to make use of new extreme light facilities. X-lites was founded in 2022 with three goals: 1. To promote collaboration across the global community of laser facility users and operators, 2. To broaden engagement across diverse scientific fields and with next generation research leaders, and...
We discuss how ready the field is to deliver the parameters needed to realize a 500 GeV PWFA electron linac for the HALHF collider. Using the current, tentative HALHF linac parameter set, we investigate in a systematic manner the difference between the the required collider parameters, including beam quality, efficiency and plasma-cell parameters, and the corresponding performance demonstrated...
The LEAP/HORIZON project at CELIA in Bordeaux aims to develop new laser amplification technologies, suitable for the next generation of compact chirped-pulse amplification lasers, with high repetition rate and high average power, at or beyond the kiloWatt landmark, with Joule-level interaction pulses – a range of parameters in energy and repetition rate of interest for laser-wakefield electron...
The repeated achievement of fusion ignition on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the U.S. has demonstrated more energy generated out of the plasma than was delivered by the lasers, thus establishing the basic scientific feasibility of harnessing fusion in the laboratory as an energy source. Fusion energy may be the ultimate clean and nearly...
Construction of a Higgs factory is the top priority for particle physics in the next decades, but the costs are prohibitively high. Plasma-wakefield accelerators (PWFAs) promise to drastically reduce the footprint and therefore the cost of such machines. However, while progress on electron acceleration is rapid, positron acceleration in plasma remains challenging. We propose a linear-collider...
In this talk, we will discuss the European Strategy for Particle Physics Accelerator R&D Roadmap and the activities under plasma accelerators. The agreed activities in this area over the next few years will be discussed.
New concepts for particle acceleration, generation, and focusing at ultra high acceleration gradients (GeV/m and beyond) have the potential to enable future e+e- and γ − γ colliders to and beyond 15 TeV energies. In addition to proven high gradient and ultra-bright beam generation, these systems have the potential to increase luminosity per unit beam power via short beams, for practical energy...
Laser Plasma Accelerators (LPA) are changing the scientific and societal landscape. Opening new hopes for high energy physics, offering alternative to synchrotron light sources with the recent demonstration with LPA’s based Free Electron Radiation, and delivering particle and radiation beams for medical and security applications, they are among the most innovative tools of modern sciences....
Lasers with high peak powers and high-energy have long been used for discovery science as well as technology demonstrations, ranging from recreating astrophysical conditions in the laboratory to driving plasma-based accelerators and inertial confinement fusion. With the novel schemes that enable high power lasers operating at high repetition rates with kW average power, we are now entering a...
