Horizon 2020 EuPRAXIA design study

The Horizon 2020 Project EuPRAXIA ("European Plasma Research Accelerator with eXcellence In Applications") is preparing a conceptual design report of a highly compact and cost-effective European facility with multi-GeV electron beams using plasma as the acceleration medium. The accelerator facility will be based on a laser and/or a beam driven plasma acceleration approach and will be used for photon science, high-energy physics (HEP) detector tests, and other applications such as compact X-ray sources for medical imaging or material processing. EuPRAXIA started in November 2015 and will deliver the design report in October 2019. EuPRAXIA aims to be included on the ESFRI roadmap in 2020

Mercury emissions of a coal-fired power plant in Germany

Hg / SO2, Hg / CO, NOx / SO2 (NOx being the sum of NO and NO2) emission ratios (ERs) in the plume of the coal-fired power plant (CFPP), Lippendorf, near Leipzig, Germany, were determined within the European Tropospheric Mercury Experiment (ETMEP) aircraft campaign in August 2013. The gaseous oxidized mercury (GOM) fraction of mercury emissions was also assessed. Measured Hg / SO2 and Hg / CO ERs were within the measurement uncertainties consistent with the ratios calculated from annual emissions in 2013 reported by the CFPP operator, while the NOx / SO2 ER was somewhat lower. The GOM fraction of total mercury emissions, estimated using three independent methods, was below similar to 25 %. This result is consistent with other findings and suggests that GOM fractions of similar to 40% of CFPP mercury emissions in current emission inventories are overestimated

Atmospheric mercury measurements onboard the CARIBIC passenger aircraft

Goal of the project CARIBIC (Civil Aircraft for the Regular Investigation of the atmosphere Based on an Instrumented Container) is to carry out regular and detailed observations of atmospheric composition (particles and gases) at cruising altitudes of passenger aircraft, i.e. at 9-12km. Mercury has been measured since May 2005 by a modified Tekran instrument (Tekran Model 2537 A analyser, Tekran Inc., Toronto, Canada) during monthly intercontinental flights between Europe and South and North America, Africa, and Asia. Here we describe the instrument modifications, the post-flight processing of the raw instrument signal, and the fractionation experiments

New Uses for the ORS Section at FLASH

The Optical Replica Synthesizer (ORS) section at the Free-electron LASer in Hamburg (FLASH) was constructed to make longitudinal electron bunch profile measurements and to diagnose the stability of the synchronization of the electron beam and the sFLASHHigh Harmonic Generation (HHG) laser system. The section enables the co-propagation of an electron bunch and a laser pulse through a sequence of magnetic components: undulator, chicane, undulator, chicane.There are several ways that this section could be used that have not yet been attempted. These include: Echo Enabled Harmonic Generation (EEHG), beam slicing with a few-cycle laser pulse, a new type of Electro Optical Sampling (EOS) with Frequency Resolved Optical Gating (FROG), and a new form of optical replica experiment which measures the changes in the spectrum and profile of the laser beam directly after the first ORS undulator. This paper aims to introduce the design and limitations of these experiments and to specify the items that can be installed in order to make them happen

Recent Results from the Optical Replica Synthesizer Experiment in FLASH

We present very promising recent results from the optical replica synthesizer experiment in FLASH where we manipulate ultrashort electron bunches in FLASH with a laser in order to stimulate them to emit a coherent light pulse from which the temporal structure of the electron bunches can be obtained using laser diagnostic FROG method