Accelerator and Beam Physics Research at Fermilab
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43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
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Results for “accelerator physics”
Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
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8 GeV SRF linac-based Booster replacement: accelerator and beam physics considerations
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43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
The DUNE Photon Detection System
DUNE is an underground neutrino oscillation experiment that will be performing precision measurements of the PMNS matrix to determine unambiguously the mass ordering and the leptonic CP violation. It also comprises a rich non-accelerator physics program for the detection of supernova neutrinos, nucleon decay, and BSM physics. DUNE employs a high-power neutrino beam under construction at Fermilab together with the DUNE Near Detector, and four liquid argon TPCs (Far Detector) that will be installed at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota, 1300 km away from the neutrino source. The photon detection system (PDS) – which records the 128 nm scintillation light of argon and provides the time of interaction of the beam neutrinos in the Far Detector - is critical for studying nucleon decay and detecting Supernova Neutrino Bursts. The PDS also complements the calorimetric measurement performed by the TPC (i.e. the charge readout) and contributes to the energy calibration and time performance of the Far Detector. The article is an overview of the design of the PDS for the first DUNE far detector module, with special emphasis on VUV light trapping in a cryogenic environment, its technical challenges, and the expected physics performance. The status of the construction of the PDS and its validation in the Run II of ProtoDUNE-SP will be also presented.
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
Present and future accelerators for nuclear physics
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43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
The Accelerator and Beam Physics of the Muon g-2 Experiment at Fermilab
The physics case of the Muon g-2 Experiment at Fermilab is outstanding and has recently attracted significant attention from its first official results. Although its measurements involve high energy physics methods, such as counting positron production rates with the use of calorimeters and beam diagnostics with tracking detectors, this experiment is strongly bound to accelerator and beam physics. This paper reviews the principles of the experiment and the details necessary to provide a solid ground for the beam-dynamics uncertainties and the corrections of the systematic effects influencing the output of the experiment: a single numerical value, which may unveil new physics.
43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
Accelerators for Electroweak Physics and Higgs Boson Studies
We discuss the goals, the designs, the state of technical readiness, and the critical R&D needs of the accelerators that are currently under discussion as Higgs and electroweak factories. We also address the respective staging options enabling future energy-frontier colliders. The accelerators covered are based on many different techniques and approaches. They include several circular colliders, various linear colliders, colliders based on energy recovery linacs (ERLs), ERL-ring combinations, as well as γγ colliders. The linear colliders proposed consist of options for the International Linear Collider (ILC), for the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC), for the Cold Copper Collider (C 3 ), and for the more recent Higgs-Energy Lepton Collider (HELEN). ERLs are key components of the Recycling Linear e + e - Collider (ReLiC),of the Energy Recovery Linear Collider (ERLC), and of the Circular Energy Recovery Collider (CERC). Among the more conventional ring colliders the following proposals are featured: the Future Circular Collider (FCC-ee), the Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC), the Electron Positron Circular Collider at Fermilab (EPCCF), and the Large Electron Positron collider #3 (LEP-3). In addition, we consider the X-ray FEL based gamma- gamma Collider Higgs Factory (XCC) and the High-Energy High-Luminosity γ-γ collider (HE&HL γγ). Finally, a Higgs factory based on a circular muon collider is mentioned for completeness.
43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
Collaborative Research: Effects of the magnetic field shear and flow shear on the kinetic physics and particle acceleration in relativistic magnetic reconnection (Final Report)
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental plasma process that allows rapid changes of magnetic field topology and the conversion of magnetic energy into plasma kinetic energy. There has been a strong surge of interest in relativistic reconnection over the past few years in plasma astrophysics, but the rich physics of collisionless reconnection and its associated particle acceleration in the relativistic regime remain less studied compared to the non-relativistic counterparts. Magnetic reconnection in a realistic system is often accompanied with the magnetic field shear and shear flows. This setting is more general and likely the more common situation where most reconnection takes place. Within the past few decades, researchers had made significant progress in understanding how magnetic reconnection works under these conditions in the non-relativistic regime. However, how the effect of special relativity, among other effects, influences the dynamics of reconnection in the strongly magnetized astrophysical plasmas under these conditions is largely unknown. Our proposed research is to use fully kinetic simulations to understand kinetic physics and particle acceleration in relativistic magnetic reconnection in more realistic configurations and physical conditions. The primary goal of this project is to identify the fundamental effects caused by special relativity under the presence of field shear and flow shear.
43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
High average power ultrafast laser technologies for driving future advanced accelerators
Large scale laser facilities are needed to advance the energy frontier in high energy physics and accelerator physics. Laser plasma accelerators are core to advanced accelerator concepts aimed at reaching TeV electron electron colliders. In these facilities, intense laser pulses drive plasmas and are used to accelerate electrons to high energies in remarkably short distances. A laser plasma accelerator could in principle reach high energies with an accelerating length that is 1000 times shorter than in conventional RF based accelerators. Notionally, laser driven particle beam energies could scale beyond state of the art conventional accelerators. LPAs have produced multi GeV electron beams in about 20 cm with relative energy spread of about 2 percent, supported by highly developed laser technology. This validates key elements of the US DOE strategy for such accelerators to enable future colliders but extending best results to date to a TeV collider will require lasers with higher average power. While the per pulse energies envisioned for laser driven colliders are achievable with current lasers, low laser repetition rates limit potential collider luminosity. Applications will require rates of kHz to tens of kHz at Joules of energy and high efficiency, and a collider would require about 100 such stages, a leap from current Hz class LPAs. This represents a challenging 1000 fold increase in laser repetition rates beyond current state of the art. Here, this whitepaper describes current research and outlook for candidate laser systems as well as the accompanying broadband and high damage threshold optics needed for driving future advanced accelerators.
47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
Two-Level Sketching Alternating Anderson Acceleration for Complex Physics Applications
We present a novel two-level sketching extension of the Alternating Anderson–Picard (AAP) method for accelerating fixed-point iterations in challenging single- and multiphysics simulations governed by discretized PDEs. Our approach combines a static, physics-based projection that reduces the least-squares (LS) problem to the most informative field (e.g., via Schur-complement insight) with a dynamic, algebraic sketching stage driven by a backward stability analysis under Lipschitz continuity. We introduce inexpensive estimators for stability thresholds and cache-aware randomized selection strategies to balance computational cost against memory access overhead. The resulting algorithm solves reduced LS systems in place, minimizes memory footprints, and seamlessly alternates between low-cost Picard updates and Anderson mixing. Implemented in Julia, our two-level sketching AAP achieves up to 50% time-to-solution reductions compared to standard Anderson acceleration—without degrading convergence rates—on benchmark problems including Stokes, 𝑝-Laplacian, bidomain, and Navier–Stokes formulations at varying problem sizes. These results demonstrate the method’s robustness, scalability, and potential for integration into high-performance scientific computing frameworks. Our implementation is available open source in the AAP.jl library.
Barnafi, Nicolas [University of Chile, Santiago]↗
Quantum dynamics of a nucleon in the Fermi accelerator
Highlights: • In nuclear physics, the Fermi accelerator is a coherent open quantum system. • There is not a true equilibrium for a nucleon‘s mean-energy in the Fermi accelerator. • Occupation of higher energy eigen-states remains even after the mean-energy plateaus. • This work paves the way for work on quantum tunnelling in the Fermi accelerator. The quantum dynamics of a particle in a one-dimensional box with an oscillating wall (the Fermi accelerator) is investigated. The model is applied to the motion of a single nucleon in the mean-field potential of a heavy atomic nucleus whose surface vibrates. By directly solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, both the state of the particle and its mean-energy are studied. The effects of the frequency of the wall oscillation on the nucleon’s energy are addressed. Its energy oscillates in phase with the moving wall for all frequencies, showing no chaotic behaviour. There is a large initial peak of the nucleon’s energy as the particle adjusts to the sudden change in the size of the box and a varying relaxation time as it plateaus towards lower energy and a partial equilibrium. Small oscillations in energy continue, since there cannot be a true equilibrium while the wall is moving. The quantum coherence between the different parts of the nucleon’s wave-function in real space is very much preserved. This research lays the foundation for future investigations into quantum tunnelling in the Fermi accelerator.
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
Status of permanent magnet radiation resiliency studies at CEBAF
An ongoing investigation for the future of Jefferson Lab’s Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) lies in upgrading its maximum nominal energy using Fixed-Field Alternating-gradient (FFA) technology for its recirculating arcs, using permanent magnets for the FFA arcs. A common concern among the community is the degradation of these permanent magnets during operation due to the radiation environment in which they will be present. This work, funded by a Laboratory Directed R&D grant, aims to measure the permanent magnet degradation in the CEBAF tunnel enclosure, and extrapolate to the energies expected from the upgrade. We present the latest results of this study, as well as plans moving forward.
Accelerator Physics↗
Future accelerator projects: new physics at the energy frontier
High-energy colliders provide direct access to the energy frontier, allowing to search for new physics at scales as high as the machine’s center-of-mass energy, perform precision measurements of the Standard Model (SM) parameters, including those related to the flavor sector, and determine the Higgs boson properties and their connection to electroweak symmetry breaking. Each proposed future collider option has its own specific science goals and capabilities, depending on the designed running energy (energies) amongst other parameters. In this paper, an overview of the discovery potential of future circular and linear colliders is presented. Results from searches for beyond the Standard Model (BSM) phenomena at proton–proton, proton–electron, electron–positron, and muon–antimuon colliders are summarized.
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
Toward Accelerated Nuclear-physics Parameter Estimation from Binary Neutron Star Mergers: Emulators for the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff Equations
Abstract Gravitational-wave observations of binary neutron-star (BNS) mergers have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the nuclear equation of state (EOS) and the fundamental interactions that determine its properties. However, Bayesian parameter estimation frameworks do not typically sample over microscopic nuclear-physics parameters that determine the EOS. One of the major hurdles in doing so is the computational cost involved in solving the neutron-star structure equations, known as the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff (TOV) equations. In this paper, we explore approaches to emulating solutions for the TOV equations: multilayer perceptrons (MLPs), Gaussian processes, and a data-driven variant of the reduced basis method (RBM). We implement these emulators for three different parameterizations of the nuclear EOS, each with a different degree of complexity represented by the number of model parameters. We find that our MLP-based emulators are generally more accurate than the other two algorithms, whereas the RBM results in the largest speedup with respect to the full high-fidelity TOV solver. We employ these emulators for a simple parameter inference using a potentially loud BNS observation and show that the posteriors predicted by our emulators are in excellent agreement with those obtained from the full TOV solver.
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
Potential for tensor polarized deuterons in Hall D at Jefferson lab
Hall D at Jefferson lab is an ideal place to install a polarized deuteron target which can be “tensor polarized”, allowing the separation of the spin states m = 0, ±1 or the measurement of tensor asymmetries. The bremsstrahlung photon beam with 3 - 12 GeV endpoint provides very little heating or radiation damage compared to an electron beam, allowing the target to be run in frozen spin mode. Adiabatic fast passage spin manipulations can then be used to greatly enhance the population of the m = 0 spin state of the deuteron. Coherent photoproduction of ρ mesons from deuterium is sensitive to double-scattering at high momentum transfer and in the m = 0 spin state an additional sensitivity at intermediate momentum transfer opens up. In conclusion, we propose a frozen spin target for Hall D and the measurement of ρ photoproduced coherently from the deuteron as a flagship measurement.
43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
High efficiency uniform positron beam loading in a hollow channel plasma wakefield accelerator
Not Available
43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
A plan to revitalize the domestic superconducting radio-frequency industry
Superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities are essential building blocks of modern particle accelerators for scientific research, and they offer unique capabilities that could be transformative for commercial applications. Growth of the domestic SRF industry in North America has faced several challenges over the past decades, as most of the international demand for cavities was supplied by European vendors. This contribution provides a brief review of the domestic industrial vendor space, an outlook of the global demand for SRF cavities and an outline of the challenges leading to this supply chain deficiency. One of the main challenges towards establishing a robust domestic SRF industry has been the large uncertainty in the demand. Meanwhile, research and development activities to raise technical readiness of SRF accelerators for industrial use have continued and several potential markets are emerging that may offer a consistent and growing demand for SRF cavities. Finally, reasons and means of establishing and sustaining competitive domestic suppliers are described.
Accelerator Physics↗
Searches for New Physics at an Upgraded Fermilab Accelerator Complex: PIP2-BD and SBN-BD [Slides]
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43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
Laboratory measurements of the physics of auroral electron acceleration by Alfvén waves
While the aurora has attracted attention for millennia, important questions remain unanswered. Foremost is how auroral electrons are accelerated before colliding with the ionosphere and producing auroral light. Powerful Alfvén waves are often found traveling Earthward above auroras with sufficient energy to generate auroras, but there has been no direct measurement of the processes by which Alfvén waves transfer their energy to auroral electrons. Here, we show laboratory measurements of the resonant transfer of energy from Alfvén waves to electrons under conditions relevant to the auroral zone. Experiments are performed by launching Alfvén waves and simultaneously recording the electron velocity distribution. Numerical simulations and analytical theory support that the measured energy transfer process produces accelerated electrons capable of reaching auroral energies. The experiments, theory, and simulations demonstrate a clear causal relationship between Alfvén waves and accelerated electrons that directly cause auroras.
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗