A Discharge Plasma Source Development Platform for Accelerators: The ADVANCE Lab at DESY

Novel plasma-based accelerators, as well as advanced, high-gradient beam-manipulation techniques’for example passive or active plasma lenses’require reliable and well-characterized plasma sources, each optimized for their individual task. A very efficient and proven way of producing plasmas for these applications is by directly discharging an electrical current through a confined gas volume. To host the development of such discharge-based plasma sources for advanced accelerators, the ATHENA Discharge deVelopment ANd Characterization Experiment (ADVANCE) laboratory has been established at DESY. In this contribution we introduce the laboratory, give a summary of available infrastructure and diagnostics, as well as a brief overview of current and planned scientific goals

Tunable and precise two-bunch generation at FLASHForward

Beam-driven plasma-wakefield acceleration based on external injection has the potential to significantly reduce the size of future accelerators. Stability and quality of the acceleration process substantially depends on the incoming bunch parameters. Precise control of the current profile is essential for optimising energy-transfer efficiency and preserving energy spread. At the FLASHForward facility, driver–witness bunch pairs of adjustable bunch length and separation are generated by a set of collimators in a dispersive section, which enables fs-level control of the longitudinal bunch profile. The design of the collimator apparatus and its commissioning is presented

Tunable and precise two-bunch generation at FLASHForward

Beam-driven plasma-wakefield acceleration based on external injection has the potential to significantly reduce the size of future accelerators. Stability and quality of the acceleration process substantially depends on the incoming bunch parameters. Precise control of the current profile is essential for optimising energy-transfer efficiency and preserving energy spread. At the FLASHForward facility, driver--witness bunch pairs of adjustable bunch length and separation are generated by a set of collimators in a dispersive section, which enables fs-level control of the longitudinal bunch profile. The design of the collimator apparatus and its commissioning is presented

Driver / Witness bunch PWFA experiments at FLASHForward

Owing to high gradient accelerating fields (>GV/m), plasma wakefield accelerators (PWFA) have the high potential of greatly reducing the size of high-average power accelerator facilities. The stability and quality of the acceleration process in the plasma largely depends on the incoming bunch structure. A precise control of the longitudinal bunch profile is essential for the optimisation of the energy transfer efficiency and the preservation of energy spread. At FLASHForward, driver/witness bunch pairs of adjustable bunch length and separation are generated by collimators in a dispersive section. This setup enables μm-level control of the longitudinal bunch profile. Here we present the most recent results of PWFA measurements at FLASHForward

X-Band TDS simulations and commissioning

Understanding of both driver and witness bunches in beam-driven plasma-wakefield acceleration (PWFA) experiments is critical in order to gain a deeper insight into what happens behind the scenes of the plasma cell i.e. validation of theory and control over the acceleration processes. However, witness bunches with lengths on the order of several femtoseconds are difficult to temporally resolve with traditional diagnostic methods. In order to characterise the longitudinal phase space of these short bunches a new polarisable transverse deflection RF structure (TDS) working in the X-Band range (11.99 GHz) will be installed at the FLASHForward facility at DESY. To assess the capabilities and limitations of this device during its upcoming operation, as well as to optimise the sometimes challenging transport of the accelerated electrons from the plasma cell to the TDS, particle tracking simulations have been performed. Here the results of these simulations for scenarios including external and internal injection will be presented