Fel-based Coherent Electron Cooling for High-energy Hadron Colliders *

Cooling intense high-energy hadron beams is a major challenge in modern accelerator physics. Synchrotron radiation is too feeble and two common methods – stochastic and electron cooling – are not efficient in providing significant cooling for high energy, high intensity proton colliders. In this paper we discuss a practical scheme of Coherent Electron Cooling (CeC), which promises short cooling times (below one hour) for intense proton beams in RHIC at 250 GeV or in LHC at 7 TeV [1]. A possibility of CeC using various microwave instabilities was discussed since 1980s [2]. In this paper, we present first evaluation of specific CeC scheme based on capabilities of present-day accelerator technology, ERLs, and high-gain Free-Electron Lasers (FELs). We discuss the principles, the main limitations of this scheme and present some predictions for Coherent Electron Cooling in RHIC and the LHC operating with ions or protons, summarized in Table 1.