A Proposal for a 1 GeV Plasma-Wakefield Acceleration Experiment at SLAC*

A plasma-based wakefield acceleration (PWFA) experiment is proposed that will accelerate parts of an SLC bunch by up to 1 GeV/m over a length of 1 m. A single SLC bunch is used to both induce wakefields in the one meter long plasma and to witness the resulting beam acceleration. The proposed experiment will -explore and further develop the techniques that are needed to apply high-gradient plasma wakefield acceleration to large scale accelerators. The one meter length of the experfilerti is about two orders of magnitude larger than other high-gradient PWFA experiments and the 1 GeV/m accelerating gradient is roughly ten times larger than that achieved with conventional metallic structures. Using existing SLAC facilities, the proposed experiment will allow the study of high-gradient acceleration at the forefront of advanced accelerator research. Presented at the 17th IEEE Particle Accelerator Conference (PAC 97): Accelerator Science, Technology and Applications, Vancouver, B. C., Canada, May 12-16,1997 -*Work supported by ~cp~tment of Energy contract DE-AC03-76SF00515. A Proposal for a 1 GeV Plasma-Wakefield Acceleration Experiment at SLAC T. Katsouleas, S. Lee, USC Los Angeles, CA 90089-0484 S. Chattopadhyay, W. Leemans, LBNL ~ R. Assmann, P. Chen, F.J. Decker, R. Iverson, T. Kotseroglou, P. Raimondi, T. Raubenheimer, S. Rokni, R.H. Siemann, D. Walz, D. Whittum, SLAC C. Clayton, C. Joshi, K. Marsh, W. Mori, G. Wang, UCM