WEC01
SLAC, Menlo Park, California, USA
Plasma wakefield accelerators have received much attention for their ability to boost the energy of electrons by several GeV in a space of a few centimeters to a meter. In addition, the compact size of the accelerating wakefield in the plasma favors beams with femtosecond duration, small size and ultimately small emittance. The plasma accelerator community is studying multiple methods to inject electrons into the plasma wake and produce high brightness beams. By leveraging the high-rep rate beam drivers made possible by superconducting RF technology and ideas for controlled injection into the plasma wake, a meter scale plasma could serve as both and energy and brightness transformer, producing beams that surpass the state of the art and open new avenues for XFEL development. In this talk I will summarize the status of plasma wakefield accelerator research, present a concept for a plasma wakefield accelerator driven XFEL and discuss the outlook for the next few years.
