Canada’s contribution to AWAKE – a plasma wakefield experiment at CERN

该提案为加拿大寻求资金，为先进韦克菲尔德实验（AWAKE）做出重要贡献，该实验是等离子体韦克菲尔德加速（PWFA）研究领域的全球领先项目之一。在过去的十年中，等离子体诱导尾流场的加速方案已经证明了超过GV/m的梯度，比现有的射频技术高出3个数量级，并有望为粒子物理、x射线科学和医疗应用提供更紧凑、更实惠的未来加速器。在PWFA项目中独一无二的，也是同类项目中的第一个，是由来自CERN SPS同步加速器的400 GeV质子束驱动的AWAKE实验。质子单级能量转移的潜力及其相对于多级电子驱动替代品的优势是令人信服的。同时，通过长质子束实现与等离子体波在毫米长度尺度上的同步是一个挑战。因此，该实验的一个主要焦点是证明一种新的机制，即等离子体内部的质子束纵向自调制，这对该概念的成功至关重要。实验中的第一批质子预计将于2016年初发射。

This proposal seeks funding for Canada to make an important contribution to the Advanced Wakefield Experiment (AWAKE), one of the leading global projects in the field of plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) research. In the past decade acceleration schemes by induced wakefield in plasmas have demonstrated gradients in excess of GV/m, more than 3 orders of magnitude higher than existing radio frequency technology, and hold promise of more compact and affordable future accelerators for particle physics, X-ray science, and medical applications. Unique among PWFA projects and first of its kind is the AWAKE experiment driven by 400 GeV proton beam from the CERN SPS synchrotron. The potential of single-stage energy transfer by proton, and its advantage over multi-stage electron driven alternatives, are compelling. In the meantime achieving synchronism with the plasma wave at a mm length scale by the long proton bunch is a challenge. A major focus of the experiment is thus to demonstrate a novel mechanism, proton bunch longitudinal self-modulation inside the plasma, critical to the success of this concept. First protons to the experiment are expected early in 2016.