Plasma wake-field accelerators offer extremely high acceleration gradients for electrons, in the region of 10’s GeV/m, leading to a prolonged worldwide interest in their potential for a new generation of advanced particle accelerators. However, plasma accelerators suffer from problems of particle beam quality and stability, many of which originate from the process of initial particle injection into the plasma acceleration channel.

H3⁺Beams seeks to revolutionise the field of plasma acceleration by demonstrating externally injected acceleration, obtaining GeV energy electron beams from lower energy high-quality beams prepared in a conventional radio-frequency accelerator. To achieve this, we will combine new approaches of laser (terahertz)-driven compression to enforce femtosecond level synchronisation between the injected beam and the intense laser pulse that drives the extreme gradient acceleration. The plasma acceleration will be undertaken in plasma channel generated through laser ionisation and expansion, and a 10¹⁴ watt laser driving the acceleration wake-field.

The project will run over four years, with programmatic access to the CLARA electron beam accelerator test facility at STFC Daresbury laboratory. The investigators have already demonstrated many of the underpinning concepts, of THz driven acceleration, hydrodynamic plasma channels and through preliminary external injection experiments. We will bring these concepts together in an internationally leading research programme.

The programme will be enabled funding from Science and Technologies Facilities research Council, the Cockcroft and John Adams Institutes, and the partner universities, Lancaster University, University of Manchester, Oxford University, & University of Liverpool. Lancaster University is the lead institution for the project.