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Accelerator physics

Surf's up at SLAC

Nature volume 515, pages 40–41 (2014)Cite this article

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A 'plasma afterburner' just 30 centimetres long accelerates electrons hundreds of times faster than giant conventional accelerators. The result may ultimately open up a low-cost technology for particle colliders. See Letter p.92

Although this inaugural experiment lost about 90% of its 'surfers' along the way, the surviving electrons gained 1.6 billion electronvolts, or 1.6 gigaelectonvolts (GeV), in energy with unparalleled uniformity, maintaining roughly 1% energy spread throughout their wild ride, while sucking away an unprecedented fraction (up to 30%) of the wave's energy. Such uniform, efficient acceleration required the researchers to inject the surfing electron bunch into the wave, and to adjust the bunch's charge and shape, with a military-like precision made possible by SLAC's recently commissioned US$15-million Facility for Accelerator Science and Experimental Tests (FACET)3. Because the plasma wave accelerated electrons 500 times faster than SLAC's main particle accelerator, the result might herald a new generation of compact 'plasma afterburners' that could boost the energy of conventional particle accelerators and potentially reduce the skyrocketing cost of high-energy physics machinery4.

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Figure 1: Ramping up the energy.

SLAC Natl Accelerator Lab

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mike Downer and Rafal Zgadzaj are in the Physics Department, University of Texas at Austin, Texas 78712-1081, USA.,

    Mike Downer & Rafal Zgadzaj

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  1. Mike Downer
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  2. Rafal Zgadzaj
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Correspondence to Mike Downer.

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Downer, M., Zgadzaj, R. Surf's up at SLAC. Nature 515, 40–41 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/515040a

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