AWAKE: a proton-driven plasma wakefield acceleration experiment at CERN

AWAKE：欧洲核子研究中心的质子驱动等离子体尾场加速实验

• 批准号: ST/N00163X/1
• 负责人: Guoxing Xia
• 金额: $ 10.47万
• 依托单位: University of Manchester
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2016 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ST%2FN00163X%2F1
• 关键词: AWAKE; proton; driven; plasma; wakefield

Over the last fifty years, accelerators of ever increasing energy and size have allowed us to probe the fundamentalstructure of the physical world. This has culminated in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Geneva, a 27-km longaccelerator which has discovered the Higgs Boson and is about to embark on searches for new phenomena such asSupersymmetry. Using current accelerator technology, future high energy colliders will be of similar length or even longer.As an alternative, we are pursuing a new technology which would allow a reduction by about a factor of ten in length andhence would be expected to reduce the cost by a significant fraction.The idea presented here is to impact a high-energy proton beam, such as those at CERN, into a plasma. The free,negatively-charged electrons in the plasma are knocked out of their position by the protons, but are then attracted back bythe positively-charged ions, creating a high-gradient electric "wakefield" and an oscillating motion is started by the plasmaelectrons. Experiments have already been carried out impacting lasers or an electron beam onto a plasma and acceleratinggradients have been observed which are 1000 times higher than conventional accelerators. Given the much higher initial energy of available proton beams, it is anticipated that the electric fields it creates in a plasma could accelerate electrons inthe wakefield up to the teraelectron-volts scale required for a future collider, but in a single stage and with a length of a fewkm. Such a collider is, however, many years in the future and test experiments are first needed.The AWAKE collaboration will perform a first proof-of-principle experiment at CERN. The experiment will use a high-energyproton beam to impact on a plasma cell of about 10 m and measure the energy change in a bunch of electrons which willtravel behind the proton beam. Observing significant energy changes in the electrons would demonstrate the concept ofthis form of acceleration which has so far only been studied in simulation.The UK has several groups (Central Laser Facilities, Cockcroft Institute, Imperial College, John Adams Institute,Strathclyde and UCL) in the collaboration preparing the AWAKE experiment in CERN. We propose a programme todevelop a wide-range of instrumentation which will the allow us to successfully build the experiment and extract the physicsnecessary to demonstrate the power of this approach. A crucial part is being able to build a plasma cell with a uniformdensity over lengths much longer than previously tried. We will also deliver elements of the electron source to be fired intothe plasma at exactly the right time so as to feel the largest possible accelerating gradient in the wakefield created by theproton beam. To determine the success of the experiment, we will measure the properties of the plasma and the energyand spatial profile of the electron beam after it has been accelerated in the plasma. Finally, our results will improvesimulations of plasma wakefields to give us more confidence in our expectations of a larger-scale experiment and help usbest optimise its layout and capabilities.If successful, this experiment will lead to a further larger-scale project to accelerate bunches of electrons of small spatialextent with high particle numbers and ultimately a new form of acceleration which could lead to future, energy-frontierparticle physics experiments. This technique has the potential to radically alter the frontier of high energy physics withaccelerators as performant as currently planned or required, but at a tenth of the length and hence cost. With thesignificantly larger acceleration gradients and smaller spatial extent, plasma-based accelerator technology could also leadto vastly smaller synchrotron light sources which probe the structure of e.g. proteins and table-top accelerators of lowerenergy for use in hospitals or industry.

在过去的50年里，不断增加的能量和规模的加速器使我们能够探索物理世界的基本结构。这在位于日内瓦的欧洲核子研究中心的大型强子对撞机上达到了顶峰，这台27公里长的加速器已经发现了希格斯玻色子，并即将开始寻找新的现象，如超对称性。利用目前的加速器技术，未来的高能对撞机将有类似的长度，甚至更长。作为替代，我们正在寻求一种新的技术，它将允许减少约十倍的长度，因此预计将减少成本的一个显着的分数。这里提出的想法是将高能质子束，如欧洲核子研究中心的那些，撞击成等离子体。等离子体中的自由负电荷电子被质子撞出它们的位置，但随后被正电荷离子吸引回来，产生高梯度的电“韦克菲尔德”，等离子体电子开始振荡运动。已经进行了实验，将激光或电子束撞击到等离子体上，并观察到比传统加速器高1000倍的加速梯度。考虑到现有质子束的初始能量要高得多，预计它在等离子体中产生的电场可以将韦克菲尔德中的电子加速到未来对撞机所需的太电子伏特级，但需要一个单级，长度为几公里。然而，这样的对撞机还需要很多年的时间，首先需要进行测试实验。AWAKE合作将在CERN进行第一次原理验证实验。该实验将使用高能质子束撞击约10米的等离子体池，并测量质子束后面的电子束的能量变化。观察电子中显著的能量变化将证明这种形式的加速度的概念，到目前为止，这种形式的加速度仅在模拟中进行了研究。英国有几个小组（中央激光设施，Cockcroft研究所，帝国理工学院，约翰亚当斯研究所，斯特拉斯克莱德和UCL）在合作准备欧洲核子研究中心的AWAKE实验。我们提出了一个计划来开发一个广泛的仪器，这将使我们能够成功地建立实验，并提取必要的物理来证明这种方法的力量。一个关键的部分是能够建立一个等离子体细胞与均匀密度的长度比以前尝试的长得多。我们还将在正确的时间将电子源的元件发射到等离子体中，以便在质子束产生的韦克菲尔德中感受到最大可能的加速梯度。为了确定实验的成功，我们将测量等离子体的性质和电子束在等离子体中加速后的能量和空间分布。最后，我们的结果将改善等离子体尾场的模拟，使我们对更大规模的实验有更大的信心，并帮助我们最好地优化其布局和能力。如果成功，这个实验将导致进一步的更大规模的项目，以加速具有高粒子数的小空间范围的电子束，并最终产生一种新的加速形式，这可能导致未来，能源前沿粒子物理实验。这项技术有可能从根本上改变高能物理学的前沿，加速器的性能与目前计划或要求的一样，但长度和成本只有十分之一。由于加速梯度显著增大，空间范围较小，基于等离子体的加速器技术还可以使探测蛋白质结构的同步加速器光源变得更小，并使台式低能加速器用于医院或工业。

项目成果

High-quality electron beam generation in a proton-driven hollow plasma wakefield accelerator

• DOI: 10.1103/physrevaccelbeams.20.101301
• 发表时间: 2016-10
• 期刊: Physical review accelerators and beams
• 影响因子: 1.7
• 作者: Yangmei Li;G. Xia;K. Lotov;A. Sosedkin;K. Hanahoe;O. Mete-Apsimon

AWAKE: A Proton-Driven Plasma Wakefield Acceleration Experiment at CERN

AWAKE：欧洲核子研究组织的质子驱动等离子体韦克场加速实验

• DOI: 10.1016/j.nuclphysbps.2015.09.022
• 发表时间: 2016
• 期刊: Nuclear and Particle Physics Proceedings
• 作者: Bracco C

Multi-proton bunch driven hollow plasma wakefield acceleration in the nonlinear regime

• DOI: 10.1063/1.4995354
• 发表时间: 2017-07
• 期刊: arXiv: Accelerator Physics
• 作者: Yangmei Li;G. Xia;K. Lotov;A. Sosedkin;K. Hanahoe;O. Mete-Apsimon

Experimental Observation of Plasma Wakefield Growth Driven by the Seeded Self-Modulation of a Proton Bunch.

• DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.122.054801
• 发表时间: 2018-09
• 期刊: Physical review letters
• 影响因子: 8.6
• 作者: M. Turner;E. Adli;Arun Ahuja;O. Apsimon;O. Apsimon;R. Apsimon;R. Apsimon;A. Bachmann;A. Bachmann;A. Bachmann;M. B. Marin;Diego Barrientos;F. Batsch;F. Batsch;F. Batsch;J. Batkiewicz;J. Bauche;V. Olsen;M. Bernardini;B. Biskup;A. Boccardi;T. Bogey;T. Bohl;C. Bracco;F. Braunmüller;S. Burger;G. Burt;G. Burt;S. Bustamante;B. Buttenschön;A. Caldwell;M. Cascella;J. Chappell;E. Chevallay;M. Chung;D. Cooke;H. Damerau;L. Deacon;L. Deubner;A. Dexter;A. Dexter;S. Doebert;J. Farmer;V. Fedosseev;G. Fior;R. Fiorito;R. Fiorito;Ricardo A. Fonseca;F. Friebel;L. Garolfi;S. Gessner;I. Gorgisyan;A. Gorn;A. Gorn;Eduardo Granados;O. Grulke;O. Grulke;E. Gschwendtner;A. Guerrero;J. Hansen;A. Helm;J. Henderson;J. Henderson;C. Hessler;W. Höfle;M. Hüther;M. Ibison;M. Ibison;L. Jensen;S. Jolly;F. Keeble;Shinseog Kim;F. Kraus;T. Lefevre;G. LeGodec;Yichen Li-;Yichen Li-;S. Liu;N. Lopes;K. Lotov;K. Lotov;L. Brun;M. Martyanov;S. Mazzoni;D. Godoy;V. A. Minakov;V. A. Minakov;James Mitchell;James Mitchell;J. Molendijk;R. Mompo;J. Moody;M. Moreira;M. Moreira;P. Muggli;P. Muggli;E. Öz;E. Ozturk;C. Mutin;C. Pasquino;A. Pardons;F. Asmus;F. Asmus;K. Pepitone;A. Perera;A. Perera;A. Petrenko;A. Petrenko;S. Pitman;S. Pitman;G. Plyushchev;G. Plyushchev;A. Pukhov;S. Rey;K. Rieger;H. Ruhl;Janet Schmidt;I. Shalimova;E. Shaposhnikova;P. Sherwood;Luís O. Silva;L. Soby;A. Sosedkin;A. Sosedkin;R. Speroni;R. Spitsyn;R. Spitsyn;P. Tuev;P. Tuev;F. Velotti;L. Verra;L. Verra;V. Verzilov;J. Vieira;H. Vincke;C. Welsch;C. Welsch;B. Williamson;B. Williamson;M. Wing;B. Woolley;G. Xia;G. Xia

A numerical approach to designing a versatile pepper-pot mask for emittance measurement

设计用于发射率测量的多功能胡椒罐掩模的数值方法

• DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2019.162485
• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
• 作者: Apsimon O