Intense-Beam Accelerator Research

Development of the next generation of intensity frontier accelerator facilities necessitates a broad research program addressing key challenges towards pushing the limits of beam parameters. An efficient approach to accelerator research is to construct small-scale beam test facilities allowing for a rapid and cost-effective studies of novel concepts and technologies.

The Fermilab Accelerator Science Facility (FAST), is a research machine to conduct accelerator proof-of-principle experiments as well as technology development to enable future particle physics accelerator facilities. The centerpiece of the facility is the Integrable Optics Test Accelerator (IOTA), a small storage ring designed to satisfy the requirements of a diverse beam physics research program using either electron or proton beams. 

The Beam Test Facility (BTF) at ORNL is a high intensity front end test stand dedicated to understanding mechanisms for beam halo development in the low energy regime of a linac.  The BTF is also used for development of novel beam instrumentation and includes unique diagnostic capabilities such as measurement of the beam phase space in six dimensions, and measurement of the beam emittance with over one part per million resolution. 

The University of Maryland Electron Ring (UMER) is a research facility at the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, on the University of Maryland, College Park campus.  Using a scaled low-energy electron beam, UMER accesses the intense, high-brightness, regime of beam operation in accelerators, at a much lower cost than larger and more energetic machines.

This talk will discuss the challenges of accelerator physics and how the experimental programs at FNAL, ORNL and UMD address them. The covered topics include nonlinear beam dynamics, beam instabilities, beam cooling, space-charge effects and halo formation, radiation generation, and photon science.