FACET: The New User Facility at SLAC
FACET (Facility for Advanced Accelerator and Experimental Tests) is a new User Facility at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Its high power electron and positron beams make it a unique facility, ideal for beam-driven Plasma Wakefield Acceleration studies. The first 2 km of the SLAC linac produce 23 GeV, 3.2 nC electron and positron beams with short bunch lengths of 20 {mu}m. A final focusing system can produce beam spots 10 {mu}m wide. User-aided Commissioning took place in summer 2011 and FACET will formally come online in early 2012. We present the User Facility, the current features, planned upgrades and the opportunities for further experiments. Accelerators are our primary tool for discovering the fundamental laws to the universe. Each new frontier we probe requires a new, more powerful method. Accelerators are therefore increasing in size and cost. The future of this field requires new accelerating techniques that can reach the high energies required over shorter distances. New concepts for high gradient acceleration include utilizing the wakes in plasma and dielectric and metallic structures. FACET was built to provide a test bed for novel accelerating concepts with its high charge and highly compressed beams. As a test facility unlike any other, it has also attracted groups interested in beam diagnostic techniques and terahertz studies. The first phase of the construction was completed in May 2011. Beam commissioning began in June and was interleaved with the installation of five experiments. Users were invited to aid with the commissioning for the month of August during which time experimental hardware and software were checked out and some first measurements were taken. FACET is currently in the process of becoming a Department of Energy User Facility for High Energy Physics.
- Research Organization:
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-76SF00515
- OSTI ID:
- 1032767
- Report Number(s):
- SLAC-PUB-14563; TRN: US1200559
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Presented at 2nd International Particle Accelerator Conference: IPAC 2011, San Sebastian, Spain, 4-9 Sep 2011
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Preliminary Conceptual Design Report for the FACET-II Project at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Technical Design Report for the FACET-II Project at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Related Subjects
ACCELERATION
ACCELERATORS
COMMISSIONING
CONSTRUCTION
DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES
DIELECTRIC MATERIALS
ELECTRON BEAMS
FERMILAB ACCELERATOR
FOCUSING
HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS
LINEAR ACCELERATORS
PLASMA
POSITRON BEAMS
STANFORD LINEAR ACCELERATOR CENTER
WAKEFIELD ACCELERATORS
Accelerators
ACCPHY