NSF Award to Beam Physics Lab, titled “Beam-Driven Accelerator Studies”, is granted by NSF Division Of Physics on August 19, 2016, with start date September 1, 2016.
Investigator(s):
Yong Jiang (Principal Investigator)
Jay Hirshfield (Co-Principal Investigator)
Award Abstract:
Advancement in accelerator science and technology is required to make possible new discoveries in elementary particle physics, and one path towards that goal is to devise new accelerator designs to provide high acceleration rates with high efficiency. This experimental research project, with theoretical and computational support, aims to confirm fundamental aspects of a new accelerator design based on a two-beam concept whereby one beam with a large number of particles provides energy to accelerate a beam of fewer particles to a higher energy. The pursuit of paths such as this is essential to increase the likelihood that a future multiple-tera-electron-volt (i.e. a million-million electron volt) machine to collide electrons with positrons will be built at an acceptable cost.
This project, based at the Yale University Beam Physics Laboratory, will support construction of a unique university-based facility for exploring a range of additional beam-driven acceleration ideas and will provide training opportunities for the next generation of much-needed accelerator scientists, including students, postdoctoral researchers, and junior faculty.
The technical objectives of this project are:
(1) to configure a 500-kV electron gun with an associated beam transport line to provide a long high-current multi-Amp bunch train; and (2) to apply such a bunch train as the drive beam to excite a detuned bimodal cavity structure to achieve high acceleration gradient and high transformer ratio.
Two microwave modes of this structure will be excited by the drive beam, with the frequency of the higher mode equal to three times that of the lowest fundamental mode. The frequencies of these two modes are detuned away from that of the drive beam or its third-harmonic, to support unconventional spatiotemporal distributions of the electromagnetic fields in the cavities. This strategy is predicted to allow the accelerator to operate at high acceleration gradient with low breakdown rates and great system simplification. The intended future outcome is the evolution of a viable accelerator structure design that can support a novel two-beam acceleration scheme with both beams moving along the same central axis in the structure.