The FLASHForward facility at DESY

Aschikhin, A. and Behrens, C. and Bohlen, S. and Dale, J. and Delbos, N. and Di Lucchio, L. and Elsen, E. and Erbe, J. H. and Felber, M. and Foster, B. and Goldberg, L. and Grebenyuk, J. and Gruse, J. N. and Hidding, B. and Hu, Zhanghu and Karstensen, S. and Knetsch, A. and Kononenko, O. and Libov, V. and Ludwig, K. and Maier, A. R. and Martinez De La Ossa, A. and Mehrling, T. and Palmer, C.A.J. and Pannek, F. and Schaper, L. and Schlarb, H. and Schmidt, B. and Schreiber, S. and Schwinkendorf, J. P. and Steel, H. and Streeter, M. and Tauscher, G. and Wacker, V. and Weichert, S. and Wunderlich, S. and Zemella, J. and Osterhoff, J. (2016) The FLASHForward facility at DESY. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 806. pp. 175-183. ISSN 0168-9002 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2015.10.005)

[thumbnail of Aschikhin-etal-NIMPRSA-2016-The-flashforward-facility-at-desy]
Preview
Text. Filename: Aschikhin_etal_NIMPRSA_2016_The_flashforward_facility_at_desy.pdf
Accepted Author Manuscript
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 logo

Download (5MB)| Preview

Abstract

The FLASHForward project at DESY is a pioneering plasma-wakefield acceleration experiment that aims to produce, in a few centimetres of ionised hydrogen, beams with energy of order GeV that are of quality sufficient to be used in a free-electron laser. The plasma is created by ionising a gas in a gas cell with a multi-TW laser system. The plasma wave will be driven by high-current-density electron beams from the FLASH linear accelerator. The laser system can also be used to provide optical diagnostics of the plasma and electron beams due to the <30 fs synchronisation between the laser and the driving electron beam. The project will explore both external and internal witness-beam injection techniques. The operation parameters of the experiment are discussed, as well as the scientific programme.