Plasma-based accelerators have demonstrated their ability to accelerate electrons at very high gradients (>100GeV/m). The AWAKE experiment, located at CERN, aims to produce high-energy...
Jul18
Can small be the next big thing? Plasma Accelerator R&D at DESY
Prof. Wim Leemans, Director of the Accelerator Division at DESY, Hamburg, Germany
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Special Joint SLAC Colloquium with AD Forum Series
Refreshments start at 3:15pm
Abstract: In laser- or particle beam-powered plasma-based accelerators, electrons surf on waves and can reach multi-GeV energy levels in a few 10’s of cm. If one relies on conventional methods, this would require machines that are multiple football fields long. Although many challenges remain, this new technology is at the brink of offering a profoundly different way in which we may build particle accelerators. An overview of the latest progress and the next steps in the R&D needed to advance this technology will be presented. Experiments will be discussed that are conducted at the FLASHForward facility that uses an FEL quality electron beam for powering plasma accelerators. In those experiments, beam quality preserving, high-efficiency acceleration has been achieved with relevance to energy boosters for FELs, as well as future colliders. At the laser-driven LUX and KALDERA facilities, an advanced generation of laser-plasma accelerators (LPA) is being developed that can power compact X-ray sources and FELs, and can be used in medical applications. Last but not least, the know-how gained is being deployed towards our “Moonshot” LPA application: an innovative 6 GeV full-energy injector for the new PETRA IV synchrotron.
About Prof. Wim Leemans
Wim Leemans received his PhD at UCLA and was at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from 1991 till 2019 where he was director of the Accelerator Technology and Applied Physics Division from 2014-January 2019. As of February 2019, he is Director of the Accelerator Division at DESY, Hamburg, Germany, which builds and operates large- and small-scale accelerators and carries out R&D on developing the next generation machines. Since June 2020, he is also a professor at the Universität Hamburg, Germany. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, the APS, and the AAAS and has received many awards including the 2009 E.O. Lawrence Award from the U.S. Department of Energy, the 2010 APS John Dawson Award, and the 2016 IEEE Particle Accelerator Science and Technology Award.
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