The John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science
Lead Research Organisation:
Imperial College London
Department Name: Physics
Abstract
The John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science (JAI) is a centre of excellence for advanced accelerator science and technology. We perform R&D and training, provide expertise, and promote accelerator applications in science and society. The JAI currently comprises 20 faculty, 23 staff, and 38 PhD students from the Physics Departments of Oxford University (UOXF), Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL), and Imperial College London (ICL). An additional 33 staff from the UK's national laboratories and CERN are affiliated with our research and teaching programmes. We have six guiding principles:
a) Develop, support and engagement of accelerator science facilities and R&D programmes of strategic importance for the UK;
b) Develop worldwide collaborations that enhance the capabilities available to us;
c) Develop novel acceleration and compact light source techniques and their applications;
d) Deliver a world leading training programme to develop the next generation of leaders in the field;
e) Communicate developments in the field to the public and decision makers;
f) Strengthen the links among the partner universities to deliver a programme that is greater than the sum of its parts.
For the period 2021-2025, we have focused on research areas that have the greatest benefit to national priorities:
- Low-emittance, high-brightness electron beams, including next-generation electron-positron colliders (ILC, CLIC), the Diamond Light Source (DLS) and its upgrade, and a future UK FEL.
- High-energy/high-intensity hadron beams, including current and future energy-frontier proton colliders (LHC, HL-LHC, FCC), and ISIS and its upgrade.
- Advanced acceleration techniques, including laser- and beam-driven plasma-wakefield acceleration.
- Particle-beam therapy applications using electron, proton and ion beams.
Through this programme we are supporting the UK's accelerator strategy by taking lead roles in both our national and overseas facilities including: DLS, ISIS and CLF at STFC/RAL, CLARA at STFC/DL, LHC, HL-LHC, CLIC, FCC and AWAKE at CERN, FLASHforward at DESY, and ATF/ATF2 at KEK.
These themes position us optimally to support our core goals of supporting major national and international accelerator developments; motivating our researchers and giving them skills in state-of-the-art technologies; and being able to transfer our knowledge to major collaborative developments and to industry.
a) Develop, support and engagement of accelerator science facilities and R&D programmes of strategic importance for the UK;
b) Develop worldwide collaborations that enhance the capabilities available to us;
c) Develop novel acceleration and compact light source techniques and their applications;
d) Deliver a world leading training programme to develop the next generation of leaders in the field;
e) Communicate developments in the field to the public and decision makers;
f) Strengthen the links among the partner universities to deliver a programme that is greater than the sum of its parts.
For the period 2021-2025, we have focused on research areas that have the greatest benefit to national priorities:
- Low-emittance, high-brightness electron beams, including next-generation electron-positron colliders (ILC, CLIC), the Diamond Light Source (DLS) and its upgrade, and a future UK FEL.
- High-energy/high-intensity hadron beams, including current and future energy-frontier proton colliders (LHC, HL-LHC, FCC), and ISIS and its upgrade.
- Advanced acceleration techniques, including laser- and beam-driven plasma-wakefield acceleration.
- Particle-beam therapy applications using electron, proton and ion beams.
Through this programme we are supporting the UK's accelerator strategy by taking lead roles in both our national and overseas facilities including: DLS, ISIS and CLF at STFC/RAL, CLARA at STFC/DL, LHC, HL-LHC, CLIC, FCC and AWAKE at CERN, FLASHforward at DESY, and ATF/ATF2 at KEK.
These themes position us optimally to support our core goals of supporting major national and international accelerator developments; motivating our researchers and giving them skills in state-of-the-art technologies; and being able to transfer our knowledge to major collaborative developments and to industry.
Organisations
- Imperial College London (Lead Research Organisation)
- ELI Attosecond Light Pulse Source (Collaboration)
- Friedrich Schiller University Jena (FSU) (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF YORK (Collaboration)
- Daresbury Laboratory (Collaboration)
- Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) (Collaboration)
- Brookhaven National Laboratory (Collaboration)
- Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (Collaboration)
- University of Michigan (Collaboration)
- University of Oxford (Collaboration)
- Queen's University Belfast (Collaboration)
- National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology (Collaboration)
- University of Strathclyde (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL (Collaboration)
Publications
Albert F
(2021)
2020 roadmap on plasma accelerators
in New Journal of Physics
Albert F
(2021)
2020 Roadmap on Plasma Accelerators
Alejo A
(2022)
Stabilized Radiation Pressure Acceleration and Neutron Generation in Ultrathin Deuterated Foils.
in Physical review letters
Arran C
(2023)
Measurement of Magnetic Cavitation Driven by Heat Flow in a Plasma.
in Physical review letters
Assmann R
(2021)
Erratum to: EuPRAXIA Conceptual Design Report Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 229, 3675-4284 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2020-000127-8
in The European Physical Journal Special Topics
Baggott RA
(2021)
Temperature Equilibration due to Charge State Fluctuations in Dense Plasmas.
in Physical review letters
Bogomilov M
(2022)
Multiple Coulomb scattering of muons in lithium hydride
in Physical Review D
Bradford P
(2025)
Laser interactions with gas jets: electromagnetic pulse emission and nozzle damage
in High Power Laser Science and Engineering
Chakraborty K
(2021)
New physics at nuSTORM
in Physical Review D
Chen Y
(2023)
Proton acceleration in an overdense hydrogen plasma by intense CO2 laser pulses with nonlinear propagation effects in the underdense pre-plasma
in Physics of Plasmas
| Description | Member of STFC Science Board (Facilities) |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Impact | Influences all areas of STFC science and its contributions to other areas of UKRI's programme |
| URL | https://www.ukri.org/who-we-are/stfc/how-we-are-governed/advisory-boards/science-board/stfc-science-... |
| Description | Science Board Member - Prof Z. Najmudin |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Membership of a guideline committee |
| URL | https://stfc.ukri.org/about-us/how-we-are-governed/advisory-boards/science-board/ |
| Description | AWAKE-II 2 |
| Amount | £41,568,800 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ST/X006301/1 |
| Organisation | Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2023 |
| End | 03/2025 |
| Description | RAL Studentship at Imperial and John Adams Institute |
| Amount | £49,081 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ST/W507982/1 |
| Organisation | Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2021 |
| End | 09/2025 |
| Description | STFC 2022-23 Impact Acceleration Account |
| Amount | £62,383 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 11/2022 |
| End | 06/2023 |
| Description | STFC Imperial John Adams 2021 DTP |
| Amount | £307,394 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ST/W507532/1 |
| Organisation | Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 08/2021 |
| End | 09/2025 |
| Description | The Laser-hybrid Accelerator for Radiobiological Applications; Scope of work to be carried out under the ITRF Preliminary Activity |
| Amount | £381,902 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ST/X005682/1 |
| Organisation | Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2022 |
| End | 09/2024 |
| Description | The new intensity frontier: exploring quantum electrodynamic plasmas |
| Amount | £506,289 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | EP/V049577/1 |
| Organisation | Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 06/2021 |
| End | 06/2025 |
| Description | ePW |
| Amount | £2,002,882 (GBP) |
| Organisation | ELI Attosecond Light Pulse Source |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| Country | Hungary |
| Start | 04/2021 |
| End | 07/2023 |
| Title | Zhi laser |
| Description | Development of a high intensity laser system |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Provided To Others? | No |
| Impact | Enables target / diagnostic preparation in the Blackett Laboratory |
| Title | Extended X-ray absorption spectroscopy using an ultrashort pulse laboratory-scale laser-plasma accelerator |
| Description | The data contained in this repository was used in the production of the publication "Extended X-ray absorption spectroscopy using an ultrashort pulse laboratory-scale laser-plasma accelerator" |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.7876186 |
| Title | X-ray absorption spectroscopy using an ultrafast laboratory-scale laser-plasma accelerator source |
| Description | The data contained in this repository was used in the production of the publication "X-ray absorption spectroscopy using an ultrafast laboratory-scale laser-plasma accelerator source" |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| URL | https://zenodo.org/record/7876185 |
| Description | ATF BNL |
| Organisation | Brookhaven National Laboratory |
| Department | Accelerator Test Facility |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Experimental proposals and performing collaborative experiments |
| Collaborator Contribution | Access to state of the art infrared laser facility |
| Impact | Two papers in Physical Review Letters, as well as other minor publications |
| Start Year | 2008 |
| Description | CRISP |
| Organisation | Daresbury Laboratory |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Development of a proposal to generate laser wakefield accelerated beams for XFEL applications |
| Collaborator Contribution | Addition of laser wakefield control and machine learning |
| Impact | Initial discussions to discuss development of an laser wakefield generated electron beamline on the new EPAC facility at Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | CRISP |
| Organisation | Queen's University Belfast |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Development of a proposal to generate laser wakefield accelerated beams for XFEL applications |
| Collaborator Contribution | Addition of laser wakefield control and machine learning |
| Impact | Initial discussions to discuss development of an laser wakefield generated electron beamline on the new EPAC facility at Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | CRISP |
| Organisation | Rutherford Appleton Laboratory |
| Department | Central Laser Facility |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Development of a proposal to generate laser wakefield accelerated beams for XFEL applications |
| Collaborator Contribution | Addition of laser wakefield control and machine learning |
| Impact | Initial discussions to discuss development of an laser wakefield generated electron beamline on the new EPAC facility at Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | CRISP |
| Organisation | University of Liverpool |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Development of a proposal to generate laser wakefield accelerated beams for XFEL applications |
| Collaborator Contribution | Addition of laser wakefield control and machine learning |
| Impact | Initial discussions to discuss development of an laser wakefield generated electron beamline on the new EPAC facility at Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | CRISP |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Department | Department of Physics |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Development of a proposal to generate laser wakefield accelerated beams for XFEL applications |
| Collaborator Contribution | Addition of laser wakefield control and machine learning |
| Impact | Initial discussions to discuss development of an laser wakefield generated electron beamline on the new EPAC facility at Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | CRISP |
| Organisation | University of Strathclyde |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Development of a proposal to generate laser wakefield accelerated beams for XFEL applications |
| Collaborator Contribution | Addition of laser wakefield control and machine learning |
| Impact | Initial discussions to discuss development of an laser wakefield generated electron beamline on the new EPAC facility at Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | CRISP |
| Organisation | University of York |
| Department | York Plasma Institute |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Development of a proposal to generate laser wakefield accelerated beams for XFEL applications |
| Collaborator Contribution | Addition of laser wakefield control and machine learning |
| Impact | Initial discussions to discuss development of an laser wakefield generated electron beamline on the new EPAC facility at Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory |
| Start Year | 2023 |
| Description | ELI-ALPS |
| Organisation | ELI Attosecond Light Pulse Source |
| Country | Hungary |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | Charged to design the electron beamline for the ultrashort (<10 fs) high rep-rate (kHz) SYLOS laser. |
| Collaborator Contribution | ELI-ALPS has provided funding for the developments and will allow preferential access to their world-leading laser system for the development of this beamline. |
| Impact | Grant awarded by ELI-ALPS for development costs. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | Hercules Michigan |
| Organisation | University of Michigan |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Experiment proposals and collaborative experiments |
| Collaborator Contribution | Access to experimental facilities (Hercules Laser) |
| Impact | Paper in Nature Physics, and Applied Physics Letters |
| Start Year | 2009 |
| Description | IOQ Jena |
| Organisation | Friedrich Schiller University Jena (FSU) |
| Department | Institute of Optics and Quantum Electronics (IOQ Jena) |
| Country | Germany |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Proposed & collaborated on an experiment at IOQ Jena |
| Collaborator Contribution | Provided experimental time and access to high power and ultrashort pulse laser facility |
| Impact | Paper in Physical Review Letters |
| Start Year | 2013 |
| Description | JKaren ion beam generation |
| Organisation | National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology |
| Country | Japan |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Manned diagnostics on the J-Karen laser system which is a world-leading PW ultrashort laser pulse system, on experiments used for studying ion beam generation with laser beams. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Access to the world-leading J-Karen PW ultrashort laser pulse system, and set-up of the laser system and experiments. |
| Impact | Number of publications under preparation, including measurements of high energy proton beam generation (>50 MeV) in solid foils undergoing relativistic transparency. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | MoD DSTL |
| Organisation | Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| Start Year | 2005 |
| Description | University of Oxford |
| Organisation | University of Oxford |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Start Year | 2004 |
| Description | University of Strathclyde |
| Organisation | University of Strathclyde |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Start Year | 2004 |
| Description | Fusion Frontiers (York) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Talk on Laser Plasma Accelerators to York Fusion Frontiers course |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Great Exhibition Road Festival Display at Goethe Institute |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Display on Lasers and Plasma Accelerators and work of John Adams Institute |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.imperial.ac.uk/events/177858/great-exhibition-road-festival-2024/ |
| Description | Presentation at Vulcan Celebration Day, Rutherford Lab |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation to describe pioneering work done at the Vulcan Laser as part of its shutdown before major upgrade. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.clf.stfc.ac.uk/Pages/Vulcan-Celebration-Event.aspx |
| Description | Reception to celebrate UK association to Horizons Europe |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | An event to celebrate UKs involvement in Horizons program, with attendance from Ambassadors and college policy makers |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | School Visit (Krishna Avanti School) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Two visits. One a careers day presentation, and the second a Science Engagement (what is light?) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Talk on Fusion Energy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Talk to IEEE society on the prospects of Fusion Energy (especially inertial confinement fusion). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
