Case Studies on Plasma Wakefield Accelerator Design

TL;DR

This paper discusses the organization and content of a CERN Accelerator School focused on plasma wakefield acceleration, highlighting case studies used for educational purposes in a rapidly advancing field.

Contribution

It presents a detailed account of the interactive case study approach used in a specialized educational program on plasma wakefield accelerators.

Findings

Effective use of case studies enhances learning in plasma accelerator education.

The school engaged participants from leading research laboratories worldwide.

Educational methods adapted to the growing interdisciplinary community.

Abstract

The field of plasma-based particle accelerators has seen tremendous progress over the past decade and experienced significant growth in the number of activities. During this process, the involved scientific community has expanded from traditional university-based research and is now encompassing many large research laboratories worldwide, such as BNL, CERN, DESY, KEK, LBNL and SLAC. As a consequence, there is a strong demand for a consolidated effort in education at the intersection of accelerator, laser and plasma physics. The CERN Accelerator School on Plasma Wake Acceleration has been organized as a result of this development. In this paper, we describe the interactive component of this one-week school, which consisted of three case studies to be solved in 11 working groups by the participants of the CERN Accelerator School.