Accelerator Physics Challenges towards a Plasma Accelerator with Usable Beam Quality

Enormous progress in compact plasma accelerators has been demonstrated over the recent years in various experiments. These experiments rely on high power, pulsed lasers or short electron bunches to excite ultra-strong wakefields in plasmas. Accelerating gradients have reached several 10 GV/m up to 100 GV/m and the absolute energy gain of electron beams is in the regime of several GeV to 30 GeV. The principle and potential of plasma accelerators has been proven impressively and performance parameters are steadily improving. It is noted that particle accelerators are powerful tools that are ultimately justified by their applications in science, medicine or industry. The demonstration of useable beam quality and a realistic use case remains to be achieved for plasma accelerators. The accelerator physics challenges to arrive at this goal are analyzed and discussed

Accelerator Physics Challenges towards a Plasma Accelerator with Usable Beam Quality

Enormous progress in compact plasma accelerators has been demonstrated over the recent years in various experiments. These experiments rely on high power, pulsed lasers or short electron bunches to excite ultra-strong wakefields in plasmas. Accelerating gradients have reached several 10 GV/m up to 100 GV/m and the absolute energy gain of electron beams is in the regime of several GeV to 30 GeV. The principle and potential of plasma accelerators has been proven impressively and performance parameters are steadily improving. It is noted that particle accelerators are powerful tools that are ultimately justified by their applications in science, medicine or industry. The demonstration of useable beam quality and a realistic use case remains to be achieved for plasma accelerators. The accelerator physics challenges to arrive at this goal are analyzed and discussed

Study for the Alignment of Focusing Solenoid of ARES RF Gun and Effect of Misalignment of Solenoid on Emittance of Space Charge Dominated Electron Beam

SINBAD (Short and INnovative Bunches and Accelerators at DESY) facility will host multiple experiments relating to ultra-short high brightness beams and novel experiments with ultra-high gradient. ARES (Accelerator Research Experiment at SINBAD) Linac is an S-band photo injector to produce such electron bunches at around 100 MeV. The Linac will be commissioned in stages with the first stage corresponding to gun commissioning. In this paper, we present studies about the scheme adopted for the alignment of focusing solenoid for the ARES gun. The method is bench marked using ASTRA simulations. Moreover the effect of misalignment of the solenoid on the emittance of space charge dominated scheme and its compensation is also discussed

Beam Dynamics Studies for Beam Focusing and Solenoid Alignment at SINBAD

SINBAD (Short INnovative Bunches and Accelerators at DESY) facility under construction at DESY plans to host several experiments for the production of ultra-short bunches and will be a test facility for high-gradient compact novel acceleration techniques. The ARES (Accelerator Research Experiment at SINBAD) linac is foreseen to produce ultra-short bunches to be injected e.g. into Novel Dielectric Laser Acceleration structures or Laser Wake-Field Acceleration experiments. The work presented in this paper is based on optimization of the focusing system consisting of solenoids for the ARES, which have been studied earlier in detail but is revisited for updated beamline. Moreover tolerances for the possible misalignment of solenoids are presented investigating the effect on the beam properties during the gun commissioning

Simulator for beam-based LHC collimator alignment

In the CERN Large Hadron Collider, collimators need to be set up to form a multistage hierarchy to ensure efficient multiturn cleaning of halo particles. Automatic algorithms were introduced during the first run to reduce the beam time required for beam-based setup, improve the alignment accuracy, and reduce the risk of human errors. Simulating the alignment procedure would allow for off-line tests of alignment policies and algorithms. A simulator was developed based on a diffusion beam model to generate the characteristic beam loss signal spike and decay produced when a collimator jaw touches the beam, which is observed in a beam loss monitor (BLM). Empirical models derived from the available measurement data are used to simulate the steady-state beam loss and crosstalk between multiple BLMs. The simulator design is presented, together with simulation results and comparison to measurement data

A Transverse Deflection Structure with Dielectric-Lined Waveguides in the Sub-THz Regime

Longitudinal bunch measurements are typically done with rf-powered transverse deflection structures with operating frequencies 1-12 GHz. We explore the use of mm-scale,THz-driven, dielectric-lined cylindrical waveguides as transverse deflectors by driving the fundamental deflecting mode of the structure, the HEM$_{11}$. We give a brief overview ofthe physics, history, and provide an example with a 5 MeV beam using$\tiny{ASTRA}$ andCST-MWS

Review of Accelerator Limitations and Routes to Ultimate Beams

Various physical and technology-dependent limits are encountered for key performance parameters of accelerators such as high-gradient acceleration, high-field bending, beam size, beam brightness, beam intensity and luminosity. This paper will review these limits and the associated challenges. Possible figures-of-merit and pathways to ultimate colliders will also be explored

Matching Space-charge Dominated Electron Bunches into the Plasma Accelerator at SINBAD

The SINBAD facility (Short and INnovative Bunches and Accelerators at DESY) is foreseen to provide sub-fs to tens of fs electron bunches for Laser Wake-Field Acceleration (LWFA) experiments. In order to avoid emittance growth in plasma cells with ultra-high accelerating gradients the injection and transport of electron bunches with beta functions of mm-size or even smaller are required. This kind of bunch is usually space-charged dominated since the energy is low (< 200 MeV) while the peak current is high for allowing the electron bunches to be used for Free Electron-Laser (FEL) generation. We present the beamline design and explore the possible beam parameters at the SINBAD linac by start-to-end simulations