LARA CDR Meeting 28^th May 2019

Meeting details

Teleconference:

Phone details:

UK: 08082 380274
Austria: 0800 006612 

PIN: 5904750902

Full list of telephone contacts may be found here.

Agenda:

1. Introduction: KL
2. Notes on last meeting and actions arising: All
   • Last meeting 30Apr19. Few attendees. No notes posted.
3. Conference contributions 2019:
   • IPAC: CH, JPa
   • GSI: KL
   • PTCOG: AK
4. STFC opportunity call: All
   • ​Call page on STFC WWW site.
   • CCAP proposal preparation page
5. AoB

Notes:

Present:

Apologies:

1. Introduction: KL
2. Notes on last meeting and actions arising: All
   • Last meeting 30Apr19. Few attendees. No notes posted.
3. Conference contributions 2019:
   • IPAC: CH, JPa,
   • GSI: KL
   • PTCOG: AK
4. STFC opportunity call: All
   • ​Call page on STFC WWW site.
   • CCAP proposal preparation page
5. AoB

Summary of actions

Notes from IPAC19

by Christopher Hunt

Due to clashes, issues with the papers etc, I didn't manage to attend a lot in person, however these are some observations from what was available and a few conversation.

Found two of the biggest players, ELI and CLAPA (its likely that I missed some of the other big names). Both have similar ideas: laser-target produced protons with some conventional magnet based capture and delivery system, both targeting radiobiological research.

ELI:

• Prague institute
• Expect first beams by the end of the year
• They have designs for a cryogenic H2 target, basically extruding liquid hydrogen into the target area. It wasn't obvious how advanced the designs were
• Conventional focussing
• Use a reasonably big laser with plans to upgrade in the next few years (>1 Petawatt)

CLAPA:

• Peking University
• Publicized results already,
• Very large laser (I think Petawatt class), with planned upgrades
• Uses conventional focussing, maybe quadrupole capture,
• Claim very high stability and high energy beams
• Really seem like they are ahead in the game

Observed some comments on polarised beams to improve performance of laser-target interactions - not sure what the logic is?

General consensus is to just use a bigger laser and conventional capture/focussing. I got the impression that shop-bought petawatt-class laser was the starting point for several groups.

There were no mentions of high-current proton cyclotrons that I could find

I found one poster discussing a flash-dose electron cyclotron,

Found rapid-cycling synchrotron design with reasonable footprint (20mx10m) producing 250MeV beam. Due to the size of laser systems, this is probably the same footprint as a laser-target facility.

Couple of 200+MeV proton cyclotrons in the works, but these are low-current machines