Plasma accelerators-progress and the future

Abstract

In recent months plasma accelerators have set new records: The first laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) to demonstrate a GeV electron beam with a significant charge and good beam quality in a "table-top" device at Lawrence Berkeley national laboratory (LBNL) [1], and the energy doubling of 42 GeV electrons from the SLAC linac in a meter-scale plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA) by the UCLA, USC, SLAC collaboration known as E167 [2]. These two events happening at two different laboratories represent a very significant advance of the field to be sure, but there have been many other extremely important advances for the field of plasma-accelerators that deserve special recognition. In this paper after reviewing these two major acceleration results, I focus on these latter advances and speculate how the field is likely to develop in the next few years.