Description
Plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) enables accelerating gradients one to two orders of magnitude higher than those achievable with conventional RF technology. High-energy proton beams presently available at facilities such as CERN have sufficient energy to accelerate leptons to the energy frontier in a single stage, with the plasma acting to mediate energy transfer from the proton driver to a trailing witness bunch of leptons.
The ALiVE project investigates the use of a sub-millimetre proton drive beam [1,2], which has the potential to both substantially enhance beam–beam energy-transfer efficiency and significantly reduce plasma-uniformity requirements compared to currently available longer proton bunches, strengthening the case for collider applications. In this contribution, we examine nonlinear plasma effects relevant to high-gradient operation, including secondary ionization and ion motion, and assess the limitations they impose on scalability toward higher energies.
- J. Farmer et al., New J. Phys. 26, 113011 (2024).
- A. Caldwell et al., “Proton-Driven Plasma Wakefield Acceleration for Future HEP Colliders”, input to the European Strategy for Particle Physics Update (2025).