Systematic studies for AWAKE Run 2

AWAKE is the world first proton-driven plasma wakefield acceleration experiment. It utilizes 400 GeV proton bunch from the CERN SPS as the drive beam, excites the plasma wakefield with amplitude of ~ GV/m (which are orders of magnitude higher than conventional accelerators) and accelerates an externally injected 10-20 MeV electron bunch up to several GeVs in a 10 m long plasma with density of (1-10)x1014cm-3. The current AWAKE experiment, so-called Run 1 has recently made great breakthrough and demonstrated stable and reproducible seeded self-modulation instability (SSM) for a long proton bunch and successfully accelerated the electron beam up to 2 GeV in a single stage of acceleration. This novel acceleration technology will pave the way for future compact machines towards the energy frontier.

Based on the great success of AWAKE Run 1, Run 2 (the AWAKE upgrade plan) aims for achieving high quality electron beam for future applications. For this project, the student will be co-supervised by experienced scientists from the University of Manchester, University of Strathclyde and University of Liverpool where he will be registered for his PhD. He will be taking a leading role in understanding the electron seeding instability, electron injection, trapping and acceleration processes. In addition, he will contribute to studies into novel instrumentation that will fully characterize the AWAKE beams.

The student will assist in data taking and analyze the experimental data and cross check the analytical models and simulation results and further optimize the experiment setup. The research results will have great impact to the further AWAKE experiment design. He or she will also attend the AWAKE Collaboration meetings and report the results at important international conferences and workshops.