Plasma & laser based compact particle accelerators ft. Jens Osterhoff
Episode 220

Plasma & laser based compact particle accelerators ft. Jens Osterhoff

Plasma & laser based compact particle accelerators ft. Jens Osterhoff

In Other Words

FLASHForward’, the plasma-based accelerator project he created, proposed, got funded and ran for ~10 years at DESY: doubling a 1 GeV beam’s energy in ~10 cm of plasma while preserving beam quality, and the first study of plasma acceleration at MHz repetition rates.

Key Takeaways

  • Deputy director of the BELLA Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, shrinking kilometre-scale particle accelerators to centimetres using high-intensity lasers and plasmas, 1 GeV in ~3 cm vs ~100–300 m conventionally.
  • Compact/mobile accelerators could enable field science, truck-mounted or endoscopic cancer therapy for less wealthy countries, smaller free-electron lasers, and affordable next-generation TeV colliders.
  • Machine learning is central for stabilising and optimising these compact accelerators; ~50 groups worldwide work on plasma acceleration, with Berkeley among the strongest.
  • Academia–industry partnership works because national labs provide the expensive infrastructure and companies provide product focus.
  • Three wishes: ‘money, time and wisdom’, more time (esp. work/family balance), more funding, and the foresight to pick the right, realistic projects.