Commissioning of the electron injector for the AWAKE experiment

The advanced wakefield experiment (AWAKE) at CERN is the first proton beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration experiment. The main goal of AWAKE RUN 1 was to demonstrate seeded self-modulation (SSM) of the proton beam and electron witness beam acceleration in the plasma wakefield. For the AWAKE experiment, a 10-meter-long Rubidium-vapor cell together with a high-power laser for ionization was used to generate the plasma. The plasma wakefield is driven by a 400 GeV/c proton beam extracted from the super proton synchrotron (SPS), which undergoes a seeded self-modulation process in the plasma. The electron witness beam used to probe the wakefields is generated from an S-band RF photo-cathode gun and then accelerated by a booster structure up to energies between 16 and 20 MeV. The first run of the AWAKE experiment revealed that the maximum energy gain after the plasma cell is 2 GeV, and the SSM mechanism of the proton beam was verified. In this paper, we will present the details of the AWAKE electron injector. A comparison of the measured electron beam parameters, such as beam size, energy, and normalized emittance, with the simulation results was performed

Optimization Study of Beam Position and Angular Jitter Independent Bunch Length Monitor for Awake Run 2

In this paper, a study using the Polarization Current Approach (PCA) model is performed to optimize the design of a short bunch length monitor using two dielectric radiators that produce coherent Cherenkov Diffraction Radiation (ChDR). The electromagnetic power emitted from each radiator is measuring a different part of the bunch spectrum using Schottky diodes. For various bunch lengths, the coherent ChDR spectrums are calculated to find the most suitable frequency bands for the detection system. ChDR intensities measured by each detector are estimated for different impact parameters to explore the dependence of bunch length monitor on beam position and angular jitter. It is found that, in the present configuration, the effects of beam position and angular jitter are negligibly small for bunch length measurement

Application of Nanostructures and Metamaterials in Accelerator Physics

Carbon-based nanostructures and metamaterials offer extraordinary mechanical and opto-electrical properties, which make them suitable for applications in diverse fields, including, for example, bioscience, energy technology and quantum computing. In the latest years, important R&D efforts have been made to investigate the potential use of graphene and carbon-nanotube (CNT) based structures to manipulate and accelerate particle beams. In the same way, the special interaction of graphene and CNTs with charged particles and electromagnetic radiation might open interesting possibilities for the design of compact coherent radiation sources, and novel beam diagnostics techniques as well. This paper gives an overview of novel concepts based on nanostructures and metamaterials with potential application in the field of accelerator physics. Several examples are shown and future prospects discussed

IMPROVEMENTS ON THE MODIFIED NOMARSKI INTERFEROMETER FOR MEASUREMENTS OF SUPERSONIC GAS JET DENSITY PROFILES

For supersonic gas jet based beam profile monitors such as that developed for the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) upgrade, density profile is a key characteristic. Due to this, non-invasive diagnostics to study the jet's behaviour have been designed. A Nomarski interferometer was constructed to image jets 30 µm to 1 mm in diameter and study changes in their density. A microscope lens has been integrated into the original interferometer system to capture phase changes on a much smaller scale than previous experiments have achieved. This contribution presents the optimisation and results gained from this interferometer

The AWAKE Run 2 Programme and beyond

Plasma wakefield acceleration is a promising technology to reduce the size of particle accelerators. The use of high energy protons to drive wakefields in plasma has been demonstrated during Run 1 of the AWAKE programme at CERN. Protons of energy 400 GeV drove wakefields that accelerated electrons to 2 GeV in under 10 m of plasma. The AWAKE collaboration is now embarking on Run 2 with the main aims to demonstrate stable accelerating gradients of 0.5–1 GV/m, preserve emittance of the electron bunches during acceleration and develop plasma sources scalable to 100s of metres and beyond. By the end of Run 2, the AWAKE scheme should be able to provide electron beams for particle physics experiments and several possible experiments have already been evaluated. This article summarises the programme of AWAKE Run 2 and how it will be achieved as well as the possible application of the AWAKE scheme to novel particle physics experiments.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Feasibility study of plasma wakefield acceleration at the CLARA Front End facility

Plasma wakefield acceleration has been proposed at the CLARA Front End (FE) facility at Daresbury Laboratory. The initial phase of the experiment will acceleration of the tail of a single electron bunch, and the follow-up experiment will study preserving a high quality beam based on a twobunch acceleration scenario. In this paper, a concept for the initial experiment is outlined and detailed simulation results are presented

Inclusive production of ρ0(770),f0(980)\rho^{0}(770), f_0(980) and f2(1270)f_2(1270) mesons in νμ\nu_{\mu} charged current interactions

The inclusive production of the meson resonances $\rho^{0}(770)$, $f_0(980)$ and $f_2(1270)$ in neutrino-nucleus charged current interactions has been studied with the NOMAD detector exposed to the wide band neutrino beam generated by 450 GeV protons at the CERN SPS. For the first time the $f_{0}(980)$ meson is observed in neutrino interactions. The statistical significance of its observation is 6 standard deviations. The presence of $f_{2}(1270)$ in neutrino interactions is reliably established. The average multiplicity of these three resonances is measured as a function of several kinematic variables. The experimental results are compared to the multiplicities obtained from a simulation based on the Lund model. In addition, the average multiplicity of $\rho^{0}(770)$ in antineutrino - nucleus interactions is measured.Comment: 23 pages, 14 figures, 8 tables. To appear in Nucl. Phys.