Proton-driven plasma wakefield acceleration - a new route to TeV e+e- collider

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This project is naturally a multi-disciplinary pursuit involving accelerator, plasma and particle physicists as well as engineers and technical staff. If successful, this method of acceleration could provide a new cost-effective route to a TeV-scale electron-positron linear collider. This application is for significant development and is wide-ranging in scope. Although equipment will be purchased from UK-based companies, this will initially be small due to the financial limitations of the bid but could increase significantly in the future. As we in the UK are a significant part of this project from the start, should the final goal be realised, there is potential for economic stimulus to the UK which building a large-scale research facility brings. This will involve the potential for large industrial contracts, training for students and other staff and knowledge exchange between academic institutes and industry arising from the R&D and the method of plasma wakefield acceleration.

The final aim of this project is to build an accelerator for investigation of fundamental particles and forces, however, the principle of plasma wakefield acceleration could revolutionise accelerators in general. The accelerating gradients achieved are three orders of magnitude higher than current techniques allowing a corresponding reduction in the size (and cost) of future accelerators. This could then benefit any branch of science, health or industry which uses particle accelerators. An example is for future free electron laser facilities which could benefit significantly from this technique in which the acceleration of electrons takes place using a much shorter accelerating structure.

Diagnostic techniques developed here could benefit many plasma wakefield experiments with different goals or applications. Additionally, the improved simulations of the dynamics of the plasma will aid our understanding of plasmas in general. Therefore the work done here could benefit accelerators planned for other industries using the technique of plasma wakefield acceleration.

Finally, the physics behind the accelerator R&D and the final goal of the next energy-frontier collider will excite future students and captivate the public in much the same was as the Large Hadron Collider has. Having the UK as part of such cutting-edge development in order to be leaders of future experiments on the nature of the physical world is essential and beneficial for society. Any economic impact, as mentioned above, can only be achieved through being a strong partner. And the societal benefit of encouraging students to study physics and improving the general public's knowledge of science can best be achieved if we are part of future pursuits.