In service of accelerator stewardship: The BNL ATF and its upgrade

Abstract

The Accelerator Test Facility (ATF) at Brookhaven National Laboratory has served as a user facility for accelerator science for over a quarter of a century. Since its inception, the ATF in fact had undertaken the mission of accelerator stewardship of the Office of High Energy Physics (OHEP), even before the concept was fully formulated. In bringing advanced accelerator-science and technology to individual users, small groups of researchers, and large collaborations, the ATF offers a unique combination of a high-brightness 80-MeV electron beam synchronized to a 2-TW picosecond CO2 laser. The ATF now the flagship of the Accelerator Stewardship program of the OHEP, and thus will provide opportunities to small businesses to develop accelerator-based products, running the full gamut from the laboratory to the applications. At this juncture, the ATF has embarked upon a transformational upgrade of its capabilities. We describe our plan for greatly expanding the ATF’s floor space, and the number of independent experiment halls, for upgrading the electron beam’s energy in stages to 500-MeV, and the CO2 laser’s peak power to 100 TW. This upgrade will afford a new, vast space for the laser and electron beam for conducting new research in accelerator science and technology that is at the forefront advanced accelerators and radiation sources, and to support the most innovative ideas in these fields. We will discuss emerging opportunities for scientific breakthroughs that include the following: Plasma Wakefield Acceleration (PWFA), extending the researches already pursued at the ATF; Laser Wakefield Acceleration (LWFA) wherein the longer laser wavelengths will engender a proportional increase in the beam’s charge, while our linac will assure, for the first-time, the opportunity for undertaking detailed studies of seeding and staging of the LWFA. The laser will extend proton acceleration to the 100-200 MeV level, as is demanded for certain medical applications.