Summary report of working group 4: Beam-driven acceleration

Abstract

Despite the urgent need for a TeV-class linear collider in High-Energy Physics (HEP), a clear path to buildable and affordable accelerator technologies has yet to be realized. Clearly, the identification and advancement of next generation accelerator technologies for a linear collider have been one of the main charges since the inception of the Advanced Accelerator Concepts (AAC) workshop. The fundamental requirements of linear colliders for accelerator technologies are to demonstrate high wall-plug efficiency, high beam quality preservation, high effective gradient, scalability, etc. Within the AAC community, beam-driven wakefield acceleration schemes (the central subject of Working Group 4) are always promising and attractive approaches. Since the last AAC workshop, a few high profile experiments related to beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration have been conducted at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s FACET facility. These experiments have successfully answered questions related to obtaining high beam energy transfer efficiency, demonstrating high gradient positron acceleration, and demonstrating high quality witness beam acceleration. Research on beam-driven structure-based wakefield acceleration has also demonstrated significant results for high gradient acceleration, including longitudinal bunch shaping for high efficiency and beam breakup control. As an important application or a stepping-stone facility, beam-driven plasma or structure-based wakefield accelerators for 5th generation FEL light sources have attracted broad attention. Studies have been undertaken on various aspects, ranging from the overall parameterizations to detailed beam generation and control technologies. Other related applications, such as high power RF and THz generation, beam modulation and energy chirp compensation, are also within the scope of our Working Group. In summary, WG4 examined the advancement of beam-driven wakefield accelerators (plasma and structure-based) in theory, simulation and experiment.