Advanced Accelerator Concepts 2026

Session

A3-Working group # 3

27 Jul 2026, 13:30

Legacy B (Luskin)

176. Elliptic Multipole Expansion Calculations in Flat-Beam PWFA: Comparison with WarpX Simulations

Yunbo Kang (University of California, Los Angeles)

27/07/2026, 13:30

To be considered for Working Group talk

Flat-beam plasma wakefield acceleration can produce asymmetric blowout cavities, requiring theoretical descriptions beyond the usual cylindrically symmetric blowout model. We present a simulation comparison of an elliptic multipole expansion model for calculating charge and current distributions and wakefields in an asymmetric blowout cavity. The blowout boundary is extracted directly from...

107. Transverse control and optimization for plasma wakefield acceleration

Yiheng Ye (SLAC/Stanford)

27/07/2026, 13:50

To be considered for Working Group talk

Emittance preservation is one of the biggest challenges in beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA), demanding extremely precise control of the transverse aspect of the electron beam. We will talk about recent experimental progress in transverse control and optimization for the PWFA experiment at FACET-II in order to demonstrate a collider-quality PWFA stage. We will talk about various...

145. New light on wakefield longevity

Jason Brooks

27/07/2026, 14:10

To be considered for Working Group talk

The time for a stationary plasma to recover its original state after a wake is excited determines the repetition rate and luminosity of plasma-based colliders. Recent measurements showed that, after exciting one wake with an impulse of $\sim 0.5$J energy in plasma of density $n_e\sim10^{16}\,$cm$^{-3}$, a second wake yielding indistinguishable beam properties could be excited at time delays...

126. Resonant Excitation of Plasma Wakefields with a Train of Relativistic Particle Bunches

mario galletti (Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati - INFN)

27/07/2026, 14:30

To be considered for Working Group talk

In the context of plasma wakefield acceleration, resonances can be exploited to generate large-amplitude wakefields, using a train of relativistic particle bunches with frequency content close to the plasma electron frequency, to accelerate a trailing bunch.
We show with experimental results and numerical simulations that the wakefields driven by individual successive bunches in overdense...

177. Progress of the E310 - Trojan Horse-II experiment at SLAC FACET-II

Natascha Thomas (Heinrich Heine University)

27/07/2026, 14:50

To be considered for Working Group talk

The E310 - Trojan Horse II project aims to demonstrate a plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) injection scheme capable of producing stable, ultra-low emittance, and thus high-brightness electron bunches. Current experimental investigations focus on the Trojan Horse injection scheme not only in transverse but also in collinear geometry, thereby extending earlier findings at SLAC FACET-I, where...

48. A Discharge Capillary Plasma Source for Wakefield Acceleration Research at FACET-II

Dr Konstantin Kruchinin (SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

27/07/2026, 15:10

To be considered for Working Group talk

A new discharge capillary plasma source is being developed for the FACET‑II National User Facility at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The FACET accelerator delivers 10 GeV electron beams with nanocoulomb charge and peak currents of 30-100 kA for advanced accelerator
research.
The capillary discharge plasma source provides operational advantages over existing plasma sources at FACET-II....

46. Teraelectronvolt plasma acceleration through regenerative cascading

Chaojie Zhang (University of California Los Angeles)

28/07/2026, 13:30

To be considered for Working Group talk

High accelerating gradients make plasma wakefield accelerators an attractive candidate for future teraelectronvolt (TeV) machines, but conventional staging concepts accelerate a single witness bunch through many independent stages, and maintaining its quality across every interface imposes stringent tolerances on alignment, timing, and matching. In this talk, we propose an alternative...

77. Nonlinear Theory for Plasma Wakefield Produced by Elliptical Beams via Data-Driven Physical Modeling

Tony Griffin (Old Dominon University)

28/07/2026, 13:50

To be considered for Working Group talk

Plasma-based acceleration is widely regarded as a highly promising candidate technology for next-generation linear colliders and light sources. In the blowout regime of plasma wakefield acceleration, an intense particle beam excites a nonlinear plasma wake. However, there is currently no theory that can fully predict the asymmetric nonlinear wakefields generated by elliptical beam drivers....

60. High-energy plasma wakefield acceleration with full charge capture in a laser-ionized all-optical plasma source

Valentina Lee (University of Colorado Boulder)

28/07/2026, 14:10

To be considered for Working Group talk

Beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration is a leading candidate for a future electron–positron collider, but it requires transferring a large amount of energy and precise control of the plasma profile. Laser-ionized plasma sources offer significant advantages in meeting these demands. In this work, we present a detailed characterization and simulation of a laser-ionized, all-optical plasma...

170. PROGRESS ON THE FLAT BEAM PLASMA WAKEFIELD EXPERIMENT AT AWA

Pratik Manwani (University of California, Los Angeles)

28/07/2026, 14:30

To be considered for Working Group talk

The flat beam plasma wakefield acceleration experiment at the Argonne Wakefield Accelerator investigates asymmetric beam-driven plasma wake excitation using transversely shaped electron beams having a large transverse aspect ratio to study novel wakefield structures and beam–plasma interactions relevant to advanced accelerator concepts. Magnetized beams at the cathode were transformed into...

197. Optimization of plasma-based electron injectors for a linear collider or XFEL

Thamine Dalichaouch (UCLA)

28/07/2026, 14:50

To be considered for Working Group talk

Plasma-based accelerators have attracted significant interest in XFEL and linear collider applications due to the high quality, multi-GeV electron beams they can produce. Through particle-in-cell simulations, we demonstrate a plasma-based injector concept to generate 80+ GeV electron beams with nC-level charge, sub-percent energy spreads and high brightness > 10^19 A/m^2/rad^2. This concept...

178. Performance enhancement of electron beams from linacs, LWFA or PWFA

Bernhard Hidding (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf / University of Strathclyde / The Cockcroft Institute)

28/07/2026, 15:10

To be considered for Working Group talk

The prospects of PWFA for boosting electron energies via high transformer ratios, as well as the prospects for ultralow-emittance beam production using plasma photocathodes [1], are widely discussed. Contrary to the traditional experience of accelerator scientists, we anticipate that the production of ultrabright beams exceeding the current state of the art by orders of magnitude via these...

174. Feasibility and Stability of PWFA Injection Schemes in Hybrid Plasma Accelerators

Edgar Anton Hartmann (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf)

30/07/2026, 13:30

To be considered for Working Group talk

Hybrid plasma wakefield accelerators combine a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) stage with a particle-driven plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA) stage, leveraging the complementary strengths of both approaches. The PWFA stage offers a robust way to improve the energy, stability, and beam quality of electron bunches produced by the LWFA. This makes the hybrid scheme a promising pathway for...

45. Multi-GeV Electron Combs from a Plasma Wakefield Accelerator

Chaojie Zhang (University of California Los Angeles)

30/07/2026, 13:50

To be considered for Working Group talk

Plasma accelerators now deliver GeV-class electron beams with sufficient brightness and stability to drive free-electron lasers. Yet they offer a distinctive capability that remains largely unexplored: the phase space of a trapped beam can be shaped in situ, at the moment of injection, on femtosecond timescales. In this talk, we report the generation of multi-GeV electron combs in a plasma...

51. Passive Plasma Lens Experiments at FACET-II

Shutang Meng (Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder)

30/07/2026, 14:10

To be considered for Working Group talk

Powerful and compact beam transport systems are essential for plasma-based accelerators, and plasma lenses provide a promising path forward. While plasma lenses have demonstrated strong, axisymmetric focusing, their application to advanced beam manipulation—such as chromatic correction—remains largely unexplored. Here we report progress on a quasilinear passive plasma lens experiment conducted...

180. Proposal for FACET-III

Bernhard Hidding (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf / University of Strathclyde / The Cockcroft Institute)

30/07/2026, 14:30

To be considered for Working Group talk

FACET is a transformative facility that pioneered plasma wakefield acceleration. This contribution proposes ideas for the continuation of FACET-II, dubbed “FACET-III”, with a focus on ultrabright electron beams and light sources such as XFELs to serve a wide range of needs in Basic Energy Sciences, industry, accelerator and HEP R&D, and the international user community.
FACET is the only...

169. PROGRESS ON THE SPACE PLASMA EXPERIMENT AT MITHRA

Pratik Manwani (University of California, Los Angeles)

30/07/2026, 14:50

To be considered for Working Group talk

The MITHRA electron linear accelerator at UCLA is being developed as a platform for studying plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) and its relevance to near-planetary electron spectra. The facility can deliver electron beams with hundreds of picocoulombs of charge, sub-picosecond bunch lengths, low transverse emittance, and energies of 30 MeV, extendable to 80 MeV with the full linac...

199. Muon production and capture into a plasma wakefield accelerator

Brian Naranjo (UCLA Dept. of Physics and Astronomy)

30/07/2026, 15:10

Poster

Plasma wakefield acceleration offers a potential route toward compact, high-gradient muon acceleration. We present a feasibility study for capture of Bethe-Heitler muons into a plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA), bypassing conventional muon cooling stages. While not intended as a replacement for high-intensity muon production approaches, this concept may enable niche applications requiring...

233. Dark-field shadowgraphy for ultrasensitive probing of plasma accelerators, wakeless regime and filamentation instabilities

Haiping Zhang (University of Colorado Boulder)

To be considered for Working Group talk

In experiments involving beam-plasma interactions, direct imaging techniques can serve as powerful tools for in situ visualization and analysis of plasma processes and parameters. An important example of direct imaging technique is shadowgraphy, which is based on optical modulation by plasma inhomogeneities. Major limitations of existing shadowgraphic techniques, however, are their complexity...

225. Experimental progress in plasma-based compression of electron beams

Claudio Emma (SLAC)

Poster

Plasma-based compression of electron beams offers a compelling path forward towards attosecond duration bunches with up to mega-ampere peak currents. These beams are broadly of interest as drivers for attosecond light sources, strong field QED experiments, studies of ultrafast quantum dynamics and beyond. In this contribution we summarize recent experimental progress at FACET-II and at SPARC...

230. Virtual shadowgrams of Thin Warm Hollow Plasma Channels for plasma-based positron acceleration.

Timothy Araujo (University of Texas at Austin)

Poster

Strongly nonlinear plasma wakefield accelerators (PWFAs) have achieved > 10 GeV energy gain along with important beam quality milestones for electron beams, but they defocus positron beams, resulting in comparatively low energy gain and beam quality. This asymmetry presents a long-standing challenge for plasma-based positron-electron colliders. Nonlinear PWFAs generated in cold pre-formed...