PD-004
Temporal Characterizaton of Femtosecond X-ray Pulses and Beam-driven Wakefield Acceleration Experiments
Programmorientierte Förderung von DESY
Temporal Characterizaton of Femtosecond X-ray Pulses and Beam-driven Wakefield Acceleration Experiments
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY
Notkestraße 85
22607 Hamburg
The research projects within the Helmholtz-Postdoc fellowship can be
classified into two categories: (a) "Temporal Characterization of
Femtosecond X-ray Pulses at Free-electron Lasers (FELs)" and (b)
"Beam-driven Wakefield Acceleration (WFA) Experiments". Both active
research fields are slightly different in their final goals, but
connected in their specific needs in terms of accurate diagnostics and
precise control of ultrashort electron and x-ray beams.
(a) The development of x-ray free-electron lasers opens up new frontiers
in photon science, which encompasses the interaction of light with
matter, leading to various scientific drivers. The laserlike x-ray
radiation with high spectral brightness, wide tunability, and almost
full spatial coherence meets many requirements in photon science.
Femtosecond FEL pulses extend the capabilities of these unique
accelerator-based light sources. However, to fully utilize these
ultrashort radiation pulses, single-shot characterization of their
duration, temporal profile, and arrival time with high accuracy is
required. Two different approaches, which rely on streaking techniques
with X-band radio-frequency and terahertz fields, will be explored at
the world's first soft and hard x-ray FELs FLASH at DESY in Hamburg and
LCLS at SLAC in Stanford.
(b) Electron beam acceleration is a rapidly advancing field of
scientific research with widespread applications, and the generation and
acceleration of high-quality electron beams within very compact
footprints is a challenging task that will most probably use advanced
acceleration methods such as beam-driven wakefield acceleration in a
plasma. Advanced acceleration techniques have prospects for affordable,
more compact x-ray FELs for photon science and next-generation lepton
colliders for particle physics. Within the the Helmholtz-Postdoc
fellowship, several key questions on WFA will be addressed by means of
comprehensive experiments at FLASH and studies at FACET (SLAC).
Helmholtz-Postdoc:
Dr. Christopher Behrens
DESY
Notkestr. 85
22607 Hamburg
Phone: +49 40 8998-1796
Email: christopher.behrens@desy.de
