Professor Brian Foster OBE, FRS

Abstract:

The FLASHForward experimental facility is a high-performance test-bed for precision plasma wakefield research, aiming to accelerate high-quality electron beams to GeV-levels in a few centimetres of ionized gas. The plasma is created by ionizing gas in a gas cell either by a high-voltage discharge or a high-intensity laser pulse. The electrons to be accelerated will either be injected internally from the plasma background or externally from the FLASH superconducting RF front end. In both cases, the wakefield will be driven by electron beams provided by the FLASH gun and linac modules operating with a 10 Hz macro-pulse structure, generating 1.25 GeV, 1 nC electron bunches at up to 3 MHz micro-pulse repetition rates. At full capacity, this FLASH bunch-train structure corresponds to 30 kW of average power, orders of magnitude higher than drivers available to other state-of-the-art LWFA and PWFA experiments. This high-power functionality means FLASHForward is the only plasma wakefield facility in the world with the immediate capability to develop, explore and benchmark high-average-power plasma wakefield research essential for next-generation facilities. The operational parameters and technical highlights of the experiment are discussed, as well as the scientific goals and high-average-power outlook.

Abstract:

A detailed study of the near-surface structure and composition of Nb, the material of choice for superconducting radio-frequency accelerator (SRF) cavities, is of great importance in order to understand the effects of different treatments applied during cavity production. By means of surface-sensitive techniques such as grazing incidence diffuse x-ray scattering, x-ray reflectivity, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, single-crystalline Nb(100) samples were investigated in and ex situ during annealing in an ultrahigh vacuum as well as in nitrogen atmospheres with temperatures and pressures similar to the ones employed in real Nb cavity treatments. Annealing of Nb specimens up to 800   ° C in a vacuum promotes a partial reduction of the natural surface oxides ( Nb 2 O 5 , NbO 2 , and NbO) into NbO. Upon cooling to 120 ° C , no evidence of nitrogen-rich layers was detected after nitrogen exposure times of up to 48 h. An oxygen enrichment below the Nb-oxide interface and posterior diffusion of oxygen species towards the Nb matrix, along with a partial reduction of the natural surface oxides, was observed upon a stepwise annealing up to 250   ° C . Nitrogen introduction to the system at 250   ° C promotes neither N diffusion into the Nb matrix nor the formation of new surface layers. Upon further heating to 500   ° C in a nitrogen atmosphere, the growth of a new subsurface Nb x N y layer was detected. These results shed light on the composition of the near-surface region of Nb after low-temperature nitrogen treatments, which are reported to lead to a performance enhancement of SRF cavities.

Abstract:

Hadron jets produced in e+e- annihilation between 13 GeV and 31.6 GeV in c.m. at PETRA are analyzed. The transverse momentum of the jets is found to increase strongly with c.m. energy. The broadening of the jets is not uniform in azimuthal angle around the quark direction but tends to yield planar events with large and growing transverse momenta in the plane and smaller transverse momenta normal to the plane. The simple qq collinear jet picture is ruled out. The observation of planar events shows that there are three basic particles in the final state. Indeed, several events with three well-separated jets of hadrons are observed at the highest energies. This occurs naturally when the outgoing quark radiates a hard noncollinear gluon, i.e., e+e- → qqg with the quarks and the gluons fragmenting into hadrons with limited transverse momenta. © 1979.