Experimental Study of Plasma Wakefield Acceleration at VELA/CLARA Facility at Daresbury Laboratory
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Manchester
Department Name: Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
Plasma accelerators have made tremendous progress in the last few decades since the inception of the idea from Tajima and Dawson. Nowadays, laser wakefield accelerators (LWFA) could achieve multi-GeV level, mono-energetic electrons through millimeter to centimeter plasma cells. Electron beam driven plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) has demonstrated energy doubling for an ultra relativistic 42 GeV electron beam in a meter long plasma structure and recently realized the high efficiency beam acceleration at SLAC FACET facility. The accelerating gradients measured in these experiments can be in the range of 10-100 GeV/m, which are 3-4 orders of magnitude larger than that in todays' conventional RF-based particle accelerators.
Since plasma wakefield accelerators hold great promise to miniature the future energy frontier machines, the research on the key issues, e.g. the ultrahigh accelerating gradients, plasma lens (plasma focusing), high transformer ratio, plasma instabilities of the plasma wakefield accelerators are critical for the new generation facility such as compact light sources and colliders based on this novel acceleration scheme.
Working together with colleagues from ASTeC and the University of Strathclyde, we are currently preparing for the first UK based beam driven plasma wakefield acceleration experiment at Darebury laboratory using the VELA/CLARA beam. The first experiment will demonstrate the plasma lens strong focusing effect. The follow-up experiment will investigate other key issues as above-mentioned.
The study will include full modelling of beam-plasma interaction, engineering design and manufacture of plasma cell, commissioning of the experimental facility and analysing the experimental data.
Since plasma wakefield accelerators hold great promise to miniature the future energy frontier machines, the research on the key issues, e.g. the ultrahigh accelerating gradients, plasma lens (plasma focusing), high transformer ratio, plasma instabilities of the plasma wakefield accelerators are critical for the new generation facility such as compact light sources and colliders based on this novel acceleration scheme.
Working together with colleagues from ASTeC and the University of Strathclyde, we are currently preparing for the first UK based beam driven plasma wakefield acceleration experiment at Darebury laboratory using the VELA/CLARA beam. The first experiment will demonstrate the plasma lens strong focusing effect. The follow-up experiment will investigate other key issues as above-mentioned.
The study will include full modelling of beam-plasma interaction, engineering design and manufacture of plasma cell, commissioning of the experimental facility and analysing the experimental data.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Guoxing Xia (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Thomas Pacey (Student) |
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ST/N504129/1 | 01/10/2015 | 31/03/2021 | |||
| 1686189 | Studentship | ST/N504129/1 | 01/10/2015 | 31/03/2019 | Thomas Pacey |
| Description | Three applications of novel dielectric wakefield acceleration (DWA) were studied for their applications to electron accelerators. These were the first DWA experiments performed in the UK and were carried out at the CLARA/VELA facility at Daresbury Laboratory. The first application demonstrated was a novel, continuously tunable, narrow-band THz frequency radiation source based on coherent Cherenkov radiation (CCR). This was the first demonstration of a tunable CCR source of this type. The second application demonstrated was passive, wakefield driven, beam manipulation for bunch length measurements. The third application demonstrated was the removal of longitudinally correlated energy spread (chirp) from the bunch, using the wakefield dechirping process. |
| Exploitation Route | We have a new STFC funded PhD student carrying on this work, developing new tools for simulation modelling and applications to current and future accelerator facilities. |
| Sectors | Other |
| Description | We developed a design for a dielectric dechirper for the CLARA Free Electron Laser (FEL) facility. This could increase the brightness of the FEL by up to a factor of 2. This dechirper has been built in 2020 and will be comissioned with beam in 2022 By studying its application on CLARA this could lead to implementation of much larger, multi-million pound cost facility, for example a future UK XFEL. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2020 |
| Sector | Other |
| Description | Collaboration with UCL |
| Organisation | Lancaster University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We contributed to the simulation study of proton beam-plasma interactions, short electron bunch diagnostic using coherent Cherenkov Diffraction radiation (collaboration with RHUL and CERN), accelerated electron beam emittance measurement using betatron spectroscopy. In addition we are working on the high energy collider based on plasma accelerators and other key issues in plasma based accelerators. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partner universities gave contributions to the AWAKE project on the energy spectrometer, booster linac, electron and proton beam diagnostics. |
| Impact | We applied the AWAKE grant together and gave key contributions to the experiment |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | Collaboration with UCL |
| Organisation | University College London |
| Department | Department of Ophthamology |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Hospitals |
| PI Contribution | We contributed to the simulation study of proton beam-plasma interactions, short electron bunch diagnostic using coherent Cherenkov Diffraction radiation (collaboration with RHUL and CERN), accelerated electron beam emittance measurement using betatron spectroscopy. In addition we are working on the high energy collider based on plasma accelerators and other key issues in plasma based accelerators. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partner universities gave contributions to the AWAKE project on the energy spectrometer, booster linac, electron and proton beam diagnostics. |
| Impact | We applied the AWAKE grant together and gave key contributions to the experiment |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | Collaboration with UCL |
| Organisation | University of Liverpool |
| Department | Institute of Translational Medicine |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | We contributed to the simulation study of proton beam-plasma interactions, short electron bunch diagnostic using coherent Cherenkov Diffraction radiation (collaboration with RHUL and CERN), accelerated electron beam emittance measurement using betatron spectroscopy. In addition we are working on the high energy collider based on plasma accelerators and other key issues in plasma based accelerators. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Our partner universities gave contributions to the AWAKE project on the energy spectrometer, booster linac, electron and proton beam diagnostics. |
| Impact | We applied the AWAKE grant together and gave key contributions to the experiment |
| Start Year | 2014 |
| Description | BlueDot Festival (Cheshire) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Over a weekend we attended BlueDot festival providing novel engagement activities (including AR and VR) discussing accelerator science and our work at Daresbury Laboratory & Cockcroft Institute. We engaged with the general public of all ages and all backgrounds (high and low science capital).We also conducted surveys of attendee number, and demographics and specific questionnaires regarding our event stall. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016,2017 |
| Description | I co-organized the Tactile Collider event in our School of Physics and Astronomy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | On 28th November 2018, I co-organized the Tactile Collider event in our School of Physics and Astronomy. We introduced the physics of particle accelerators and Higgs boson to students who are blind or partially sighted. The event attracted more than 60 students from the local area of Manchester. We received very kind feedback from those students. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
| Description | I organised and participated the Manchester Science Festival at MOSI |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | I helped organise and participated the Manchester Science Festival at MOSI on 29th October 2017. We received about 1100 school kids and their parents. The key theme was about particle accelerators in Daresbury lab and how these particle accelerators work. I also introduced the LHC and how the plasma accelerators work to the audiences. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Tactile Collider (North West) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | We have developed content for discussing particle accelerators and particle physics with a Visually Impaired (VI) audience. This involved development of actives including building magnets and sorting particles; utilising novel techniques such as 3D printing. We have visited specialist schools in Liverpool, Bolton and Birmingham, with VI pupils attracted from across each of those regions to our event. Schools have reported increased interest from the pupils and provided consistently positive feedback. Further events are planned throughout 2018/19. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017,2018 |
| URL | https://twitter.com/TactileCollider |