Plasma wakefield acceleration at SLAC FACET-II

This project revolves around upcoming plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA) experiments at SLAC FACET-II in context of the E-310: Trojan Horse programme and the design of a potential future PWFA-FEL. The project is motivated by results from the E210 experiments at FACET and prospects of the plasma photocathode technology. The project will push plasma wakefield acceleration and ultrahigh brightness electron beam production from a plasma photocathode, and will develop solutions for extraction, capture, and transport of such beams after leaving the plasma stage, and will then investigate the potential of exploiting such electron beam to power next-generation free electron lasers by them. The emittance and brightness of such electron beams may allow to realize coherent free-electron lasers in the hard x-ray region in compact setups, which could revolutionize the photon science landscape. The project is aligned with the STFC "PWFA-FEL" project "Exploratory study of PWFA-driven FEL at CLARA" in collaboration with ASTeC, SLAC and UCLA.