Accelerator Physics Group

 

The Accelerator Physics Group is part of the UK's Accelerator Science and Technology Centre, ASTeC.

 

The Accelerator Physics group of ASTeC is a 13-strong team based at the Cockcroft Institute at  STFC Daresbury Laboratory. We are involved in the development and commissioning of electron accelerators around the world.  

 

At Daresbury Laboratory, we are currently commissioning ALICE (Accelerators and Lasers In Combined Experiments), a 35 MeV energy recovery linac based on superconducting technology. The machine routinely operates with full energy recovery at an energy of 20.8 MeV and THz radiation is being produced.

 

Another on-site machine, currently under installation, is EMMA (Electron Machine of Many Applications), the world’s first non-scaling FFAG (Fixed Field Accelerating Gradient) accelerator. This prototype machine will use ALICE as an injector and the accelerator physics group have been heavily involved in the design of EMMA and the injection and extraction lines.

 

Recently we have developed a photocathode preparation facility in collaboration with the Institute of Semiconductor Physics in Novisibirsk. This is currently under commissioning and will be installed on ALICE next year in an upgrade to the existing electron gun.

 

Looking towards the future of light sources in the UK, the ASTeC Accelerator Physics group have been working with our colleagues within ASTeC and from the Diamond Light Source to produce a design for the NLS (New Light Source) project. This is a high repetition rate, short pulse facility driving a suite of Free Electron Lasers.

Accelerator Physics staff continue to hold important roles in the International Linear Collider (ILC) damping rings and beam delivery system in the areas of low emittance tuning and collimation. Related to this work, group members work on the ATF test facilities at KEK in Japan and also experiments at SLAC.

 

Other international collaborations the Accelerator Physics group are involved in include PITZ (Photo-Injector Test facility, Zeuthen) and the CLIC (Compact Linear Collider) project.

 

Finally, the accelerator physics group has provided support over the 27 years of operation of the SRS (Synchrotron Radiation Source) here at Daresbury Laboratory right up until the shutdown in 2008.