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Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva: is there an alternative to building ever bigger and more costly machines? CERN Geneva

Physicists in the four-nation EuroLEAP project are planning to build a new kind of particle accelerator in which electrons are boosted by intense laser pulses fired into a plasma. Two prototypes will be constructed with the aim of accelerating electrons to energies of 1 gigaelectronvolt (GeV) or more. The attraction is the small size of the machine metres rather than kilometres and the early potential for creating new, compact sources of powerful radiation for use in science, industry and medicine.

Europes table-top particle accelerator

article accelerators are the archetypal symbols of big science. Physicists use them to boost atomic particles such as electrons or protons to within a tiny fraction of the speed of light before smashing them into other particles to reveal the nature of matter at a fundamental level.

Surfing the wake

The technology waiting in the wings is known as plasma laser wakefield acceleration. In one version, a powerful flash of laser light is blasted into a plasma an ionised gas leaving a trail of disturbed plasma in its wake. The fields in the wake can be thousands of times stronger than in an accelerator. If a bunch of electrons is then injected into the wake they are rapidly accelerated, much like a surfer being carried along on a wave. The challenge is to sustain the acceleration over a sufficient distance to attain large energies and to ensure that all the electrons in a bunch stay together. As of 2004, researchers had attained acceleration distances of less than a millimetre. If this discovery could be further developed and controlled, it opens up the tantalising prospect of a table-top accelerator that could fit comfortably into one room of an average physics laboratory. That is the vision that drives the EuroLEAP project, part of the NEST Adventure series, which sets out to construct two prototype wakefield particle accelerators.

To test modern theories of physics requires very high collision energies which, in turn, means very big accelerators. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva, for example, is being built in a circular tunnel 27 km in circumference, while the proposed International Linear Collider will be 40 km in length. Machines like these are extremely expensive and can only be contemplated as multinational collaborative efforts. So, is there an alternative to building ever bigger and more costly machines? Some physicists think there is. Conventional accelerators are so big only because the electromagnetic fields used to accelerate the particles are relatively weak. It takes many kilometres of acceleration to achieve the required energies. If the fields were much stronger, particles could attain the same energies in a much shorter distance.

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The 'plasma laser wakefield' accelerates electrones much like a surfer being carried along on a wave. Ian McDonnell

AT A GLANCE
Official title European laser electron controlled acceleration in plasmas to GeV energy range Coordinator France: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Partners United Kingdom: University of Strathclyde The Netherlands: Universiteit Twente The Netherlands: Eindhoven University of Technology United Kingdom: Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine United Kingdom: University of Oxford Portugal: Instituto Superior Tcnico United Kingdom: Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils Further information Dr Brigitte Cros Laboratoire de Physique des Gaz et des Plasmas Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Universit Paris XI, Btiment 210 91405 Orsay, France Fax: +33 169 157844 E-mail: brigitte.cros@pgp.u-psud.fr Duration 36 months Project Cost 3 205 035 EU Funding 2 000 000 Project reference Contract No 28514 (NEST) Web: http://cordis.europa.eu/nest

Physicists from eight institutions in France, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK are taking part in the project, which is coordinated by Dr Brigitte Cros at CNRS in France. They include the leading European groups working in this area and bring expertise in the physics of plasmas, lasers and accelerators.

In the third year of the project, the best results will be put together to create and test two experimental accelerators. It is hoped that at least one of them will see electrons accelerated to energies of more than one gigaelectronvolt (GeV). While plasma accelerators will not replace the big conventional accelerators for a long time yet, there is intense interest in one particular application. The free electron laser (FEL) uses electron beams to create laser radiation that can be tuned to any desired frequency within its range. Todays FELs can emit in a band from microwaves down to visible light, but the powerful electron beam from a compact plasma accelerator could enable FELs to attain X-ray energies, opening up a host of potential applications in basic science, industry and medicine. up the

New intensity

EuroLEAP will investigate two different approaches to building a wakefield accelerator. In one line of research, the electrons to be accelerated will be drawn from the plasma itself as the laser pulse passes through, while in the other they will be injected separately. It is not clear at present which is the better method so different groups will develop both of them to the prototype stage. At the same time, It opens a third group will invesprospect of a table tigate methods of top accelerator that extending the length of the accelerating region could fit into one from less than a millimetre room of an average to several centimetres, physics laboratory. a key development in achieving high energies, while a fourth team will develop diagnostic tools for measuring the performance of the electron beams.

European Commission, 2006

The Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to the information presented in this document.