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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.

Publications

10 25 50
 
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