Fulfilling the Mission of Brookhaven Atf as Doe’s Flagship User Facility in Accelerator Stewardship*

The Accelerator Test Facility (ATF) at Brookhaven National Laboratory has served as a user facility for accelerator science for over a quarter of a century. In bringing advanced accelerator-science and technology to individual users, small groups of researchers, and large collaborations, the ATF offers a unique combination of a high-brightness 80-MeV electron beam synchronized to a Terawatt-class picosecond CO2 laser. The ATF is now the flagship user facility of the Accelerator Stewardship program of the DOE OHEP. In this role, it will also provide opportunities for small businesses to develop accelerator-based products, running the full gamut from the laboratory to the applications. At this juncture, the ATF has embarked upon a transformational upgrade of its capabilities designed to meet ever-growing demands of the user community. We describe our plan for greatly expanding the ATF’s floor space along with critical enhancement of our laser and electron accelerator capabilities to enable forefront research for advanced acceleration techniques and radiation sources. We will discuss emerging opportunities for scientific breakthroughs in several areas of R&D enabled by the ATF