26–31 Jul 2026
Luskin Conference Center, UCLA
US/Pacific timezone

Session

Invited Talks

27 Jul 2026, 08:45
Ballroom (Luskin Conference Center)

Ballroom

Luskin Conference Center

Presentation materials

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  1. Calin Hojbota (The University of Texas at Austin)
    27/07/2026, 08:45
    Invited plenary

    We present results from the ELI50122 campaign using the ELI-NP 10 PW beamline. We observed multi-PW-driven LWFA in a transitional regime where PWFA takes over the high-energy boosting stage. Using a nitrogen-doped helium gas at electron densities of 4-6 × 10¹⁷ cm⁻³ favored this transition, demonstrating beams of multi-nC charge with a clear dependence on the N₂ concentration.
    The experimental...

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  2. Andreas Maier (DESY)
    27/07/2026, 09:15
    Invited plenary

    DESY is pursuing an ambitious laser-plasma injector option for its future PETRA IV synchrotron. The plasma injector will deliver 6 GeV electron beams for direct injection into the ring, offering a significant reduction in footprint and energy consumption.

    We will present the conceptual design and development roadmap and discuss technology challenges including drive laser and plasma...

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  3. Doug Storey (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
    27/07/2026, 09:45
    Invited plenary

    At the FACET-II national user facility, plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) experiments are advancing beam-driven concepts towards application-relevant performance. Using a 10 GeV, high brightness electron beam and a variety of plasma sources, we demonstrate stable, multi-GeV acceleration of externally and internally injected witness beams. In two-bunch linac operation with a 40 cm Li vapor...

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  4. Jeroen van Tilborg
    27/07/2026, 10:45
    Invited plenary

    Relativistic electron beams from compact Laser Plasma Accelerators (LPAs) have unique and favorable properties that can be transferred to LPA-driven secondary radiation sources. Properties include the point-like nature of the radiation source, femtosecond duration, low emittance, high energy for deeper penetration, and large flux per shot. Combined with high-repetition-rate laser drivers and...

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  5. Aaron Liberman (Weizmann Institute of Science)
    27/07/2026, 11:15
    Invited plenary

    Laser-wakefield accelerators (LWFAs) have demonstrated the ability to generate high-quality, monoenergetic electron beams. Yet, efforts to achieve higher electron energies are hampered by electron dephasing and beam diffraction. One promising approach to mitigating these limitations is the use of structured light to control the on-axis propagation velocity within LWFAs. This method promises an...

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  6. Gongxiaohui Chen (ANL)
    27/07/2026, 11:45
    Invited plenary

    Normal-conducting accelerating structures capable of supporting GV/m-scale electric fields offer a compelling pathway toward compact accelerator systems. Achieving such fields in photocathode RF guns is equally essential for the production of high-brightness electron bunches. Our group has recently demonstrated ~0.4 GV/m peak electric fields on the photocathode surface of an X-band (11.7 GHz)...

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  7. Anthony Gonsalves (Lawrence Berkeley national laboratory)
    28/07/2026, 08:45
    Invited plenary

    Laser–plasma accelerators (LPAs) sustain accelerating gradients orders of magnitude beyond those of radio frequency structures, offering compact sources of multi-GeV electron beams. Yet single-stage energy gain remains fundamentally constrained by laser depletion. Overcoming this limit requires staging: the sequential coupling of multiple plasma accelerator modules, each driven by an...

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  8. Arthur Clairembaud (Max Planck Society (DE))
    28/07/2026, 09:15
    Invited plenary

    The AWAKE experiment at CERN aims at driving plasma wakefields using a long, highly energetic (400GeV) proton bunch from the Super Proton Synchrotron, in principle enabling the acceleration of a witness bunch with a large gradient (>1GeV/m) over hundreds of meters. To drive these large amplitude wakefields, the long bunch must first be split into a train of microbunches through a transverse...

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  9. mario galletti (Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati - INFN)
    28/07/2026, 09:45
    Invited plenary

    We have experimentally demonstrated plasma-based electron acceleration using laser-generated plasma filament as acceleration stage. In our experiments, we retrieve an energy gain of approximately 8 MeV (corresponding accelerating gradient 260 MV/m) in a 3-cm long plasma stage, together with a significantly enhanced stability of the acceleration process.
    The work builds on a complete...

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  10. Sophia Malko (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory)
    28/07/2026, 10:45
    Invited plenary

    Recent advances in high-intensity laser-driven proton focusing using hemispherical foils have enabled the generation of intense, localized proton beams. When thin foils are irradiated by ultraintense laser pulses (I > 10^19 W/cm²), broadband protons are produced via target-normal-sheath acceleration and subsequently focused by self-generated transient electric fields to 10–50 μm spots. In this...

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  11. Sida Cao (Stanford University)
    28/07/2026, 11:15
    Invited plenary

    High-intensity laser-plasma interactions provide access to accelerating fields far exceeding those achievable in conventional accelerators, offering a pathway toward compact sources of energetic particles. However, accelerated ion energies in laser-driven experiments are currently limited to approximately 150 MeV per nucleon; the small charge-to-mass ratio of ions makes standard laser...

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  12. Maxence Thevenet
    28/07/2026, 11:45
    Invited plenary

    Petra IV, the upcoming fourth-generation synchrotron light source at DESY, ambitions to become the world’s brightest X-ray source. Installed in the PETRA tunnel, it consists of a 2.3-km circumference ring storing 1,920 bunches at 6 GeV, for a total charge of 1,500 nC. In 2024, we published a Conceptual Design Report [A. Martinez de la Ossa et al., DESY, 2024...

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  13. Dr Karie Badgley (Fermilab)
    29/07/2026, 08:45
    Invited plenary

    Muon colliders provide a path to high-luminosity lepton collisions at center-of-mass energies beyond the reach of existing collider technologies. Unlike protons, muons are elementary particles, so the full beam energy is available in the collision. Unlike electrons, muons emit significantly less synchrotron radiation, enabling compact circular machines at the multi-TeV scale. A muon collider...

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  14. Dr Aimé Matheron (Helmholtz Institute Jena)
    29/07/2026, 09:15
    Invited plenary

    Focusing multi-GeV electron beams to extreme densities is central to accelerator physics, laboratory astrophysics, and strong-field quantum electrodynamics research. Conventional approaches relying on large magnetic assemblies are ultimately limited in achievable focusing power.

    Here we report the first experimental observation of a fundamentally new focusing mechanism, in which a...

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  15. Prof. Robert Bingham (STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory)
    29/07/2026, 09:45
    Invited plenary

    The axion is a hypothetical particle associated with a possible solution to the strong CP problem and is a leading candidate for dark matter. In this talk we investigate the emission of axions by electrons accelerated by intense laser beams. We find the emission probability and energy within the WKB approximation for an electron accelerated by an electromagnetic field. As an application, we...

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  16. Derun Li (LBNL)
    29/07/2026, 10:45
    Invited plenary
  17. Livio Verra (INFN - LNF)
    29/07/2026, 11:15
    Invited plenary

    The talk will discuss the latest news about the status of the EuPRAXIA user facility, in particular regarding the plasma beam-driven pillar that will be realized at INFN - Frascati National Laboratory.
    The start of the building construction is foreseen by the end of the current year and the first beam is expected in 2031.
    Recent experimental progress achieved at the SPARC_LAB facility will...

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  18. Mark Hogan
    29/07/2026, 11:45
    Invited plenary

    The field of plasma-based accelerators traces its origin to UCLA and, above all, to John Dawson — whose 1979 paper with Toshi Tajima proposed using an intense laser to drive a plasma wave capable of accelerating electrons at gradients thousands of times beyond conventional radio-frequency cavities. This talk follows that idea from its roots in Dawson's early plasma-physics work through four...

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  19. Yong Ma (University of Michigan)
    30/07/2026, 08:45
    Invited plenary

    Laser and plasma wakefield accelerators are promising for many applications such as future TeV electron-positron colliders and X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs). These applications require high beam quality in terms of energy spread, emittance, and shot-to-shot stability. To achieve high beam quality, one needs to precisely diagnose the beam dynamics during acceleration. This is difficult...

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  20. Elias Gerstmayr (Queen's University Belfast)
    30/07/2026, 09:15
    Invited plenary

    We report the experimental demonstration of a spatiotemporally engineered “chromatic Flying-Focus” laser pulse to enhance x-ray generation in relativistic Thomson scattering. Precise tuning of the group delay dispersion was used to match the velocity of the focus to the trajectory of a counter-propagating laser-wakefield-accelerated electron beam. This extended the Thomson-scattering...

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  21. Alexej Grudiev (CERN)
    30/07/2026, 09:45
    Invited plenary

    International Muon Collider Collaboration (IMCC) has been formed about 5 years ago picking up and continuing the long-standing R&D effort initiated by the US Muon Accelerator Program (MAP). Since then, significant R&D progress has been made in key areas of the muon collider, one of which muon collider ionization cooling complex and its RF systems will be reviewed in this talk. Development of...

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  22. Kelly Swanson (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
    30/07/2026, 10:45
    Invited plenary

    Producing electron beams with sub-femtosecond durations and ultra-high peak currents would enable new opportunities in applications ranging from strong field quantum electrodynamics and laboratory astrophysics to next-generation light sources. However, compressing electron beams to such short durations without compromising quality requires new techniques. In this talk, we explore a...

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  23. Gabriele Maria Grittani
    30/07/2026, 11:15
    Invited plenary

    We present the results obtained with the implementation of all-optical guiding technique in the ELBA and ALFA laser Wakefield accelerators at ELI Beamlines. In ELBA, we demonstrate for the first time all-optical guiding starting from a single laser pulse (L3-HAPLS, 15 J, 30 fs), enabling electron beam energy up to 5 GeV. This scheme has been experimentally tested up to 8 J at 3.3 Hz repetition...

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  24. River Robles (Stanford University)
    30/07/2026, 11:45
    Invited plenary

    Attosecond pulses from X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) have opened the doors to atomic site-specific studies of the motion of electrons on their natural timescales. Attosecond XFEL experiments to date have operated in the impulsive regime, in which the incoming pulse is short enough that the exact pulse duration and structure does not affect the system dynamics. On the other hand,...

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  25. Prof. Franz Kaertner (DESY)
    31/07/2026, 08:45
    Invited plenary

    Review of recent progress in THz-based acceleration

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  26. Charles Arrowsmith (University of Rochester Laboratory for Laser Energetics)
    31/07/2026, 09:15
    Invited plenary

    Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) is a highly promising route to realizing compact particle accelerators and radiation sources, utilizing electric fields >100 GV/m to produce multi-GeV electron beams with percent-scale energy spread and sub-mrad divergence. Until now, the maximum producible electron energy has been limited by dephasing, where electrons outrun the accelerating phase of the...

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  27. Juan Pablo Gonzalez-Aguilera (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
    31/07/2026, 09:45
    Invited plenary

    Advanced accelerator concepts rely on the precise measurement and control of the beam distribution. However, conventional methods used to characterize precise features of the beam distribution in six-dimensional phase space require many measurements taken over tens of hours of beam time. In recent years, generative phase space reconstruction (GPSR) has been shown to significantly reduce the...

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