Richard D'Arcy

Abstract:

Detailed knowledge of particle-beam properties is of great importance to understand and push the performance of existing and next-generation particle accelerators. We recently proposed a phase-space tomography method to reconstruct the five-dimensional (5D) phase space, i.e., the charge density distribution in all three spatial directions and the two transverse momenta. Here, we present the first experimental demonstration of the method at the FLASHForward facility at DESY. This includes the reconstruction of the 5D phase-space distribution of a GeV-class electron bunch, the use of this measured phase space to create a particle distribution for simulations, and the extraction of the transverse 4D slice emittance.

Abstract:

This contribution outlines the HALHF concept, which combines the high gradients achievable in plasma-wakefield acceleration with conventional radio-frequency acceleration. In HALHF, beam-driven plasma-wakefield cells are used to accelerate electrons to high energy. Because plasma-based acceleration of positrons is problematic, conventional RF acceleration is used but to much lower energy. The HALHF concept utilises not only asymmetric energies but also asymmetric bunch charges and asymmetric transverse emittances, leading to comparable luminosity to conventional facilities but much lower capital cost. Possible upgrades to the HALHF facility are discussed, in particular to the tt− threshold and to 550 GeV, where the Higgs self-coupling and tt−H coupling can be measured. Other upgrades include the provision of two interaction points, to implement a γ.γ collider of two possible types and finally a symmetric high-energy collider if the problem of plasma-based positron acceleration can be solved.

Abstract:

Radio-frequency particle accelerators are engines of discovery, powering high-energy physics and photon science, but are also large and expensive due to their limited accelerating fields. Plasma-wakefield accelerators (PWFAs) provide orders-of-magnitude stronger fields in the charge-density wave behind a particle bunch travelling in a plasma, promising particle accelerators of greatly reduced size and cost. However, PWFAs can easily degrade the beam quality of the bunches they accelerate. Emittance, which determines how tightly beams can be focused, is a critical beam quality in for instance colliders and free-electron lasers, but is particularly prone to degradation. We demonstrate, for the first time, emittance preservation in a high-gradient and high-efficiency PWFA while simultaneously preserving charge and energy spread. This establishes that PWFAs can accelerate without degradation—an essential step toward energy boosters in photon science and multistage facilities for compact high-energy particle colliders.