About the project
In order to fully understand complex beam-plasma interactions, experiments must be performed to investigate this very particular regime of plasma physics. A typical plasma wakefield acceleration experiment consists of the plasma itself plus a driving force which is used to set up a very strong field plasma wave, called a "wake" in this context. As plasma source, a gas, ionized by a high power laser is often used. As driver, either a TW-scale laser ("laser driven") or a high intensity charged particle beam is used ("beam driven").
Cooperation
The University of Oslo participates in two international beam-driven plasma wakefield experiments :
* the AWAKE project located at CERN, where a highly energetic proton bunch generated by the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron is used as a driver
* the E200 experiment located at FACET/SLAC, where high intensity electron or positron bunches are used as drivers