PWFA

In PWFA, tightly-packed bunches of electrons are fired into the plasma like bullets from a machine gun, blowing the plasma's electrons away in all directions leaving the heavier plasma nuclei behind.

Wired Top Stories 2009

"I look forward to watching these ideas continue to develop," says Mark Hogan, a member of the electron-driven PWFA team at SLAC.

Wired Top Stories 2009

As governments put a stranglehold on spending, advancements in PWFA may be the best hope for refining the discoveries expected to be made at the LHC.

Wired Top Stories 2009

Using simulations, a team of German and Russian physicists have pioneered a new technique for particle acceleration, called proton-driven plasma-wakefield acceleration (PWFA).

Wired Top Stories 2009

In a numerical simulation, the team used proton-driven PWFA to accelerate electron bunches to 500 GeV in 300 meters of plasma.

Wired Top Stories 2009

Caldwell and his colleagues hope proton-driven PWFA will pave the way.

Wired Top Stories 2009

Combining the new proton-driven PWFA with the LHC's powerful proton beam, Caldwell says it might be possible to accelerate electrons to several TeV, so that physicists can have their power, and their precision too.

Wired Top Stories 2009

Electron acceleration by proton-driven PWFA is in its earliest theoretical stages - this study is the first to describe the concept - and is far from experimental verification.

Wired Top Stories 2009