A group of members and associates of the AWAKE-UK collaboration met online on Friday 10 November to discuss the progress made in the project over the last six months.
AWAKE-UK coordinator Matthew Wing gave an overview of the current status of the experiment, after which researchers from each of the partner institutions presented their progress on the different work packages: electron injection line, beam diagnostics, and plasma measurements.
James Henderson introduced the work on the timing and synchronisation system for electron beam lines that has been planned for a new PhD student recruited by Lancaster University.
Vittorio Bencini, from the University of Oxford presented the latest results on the 18 MeV electron beam line and Bethany Spear, also from Oxford, talked about Cherenkov and high-frequency beam position monitors.
Advances on different techniques and devices to measure the bunch length, transverse profile, and emittance of the electron beamline were discussed by Guoxing Xia and Hossein Saberi (University of Manchester), Catherine Swain (University of Liverpool), and Fern Pannell (University College London).
Abigail James, from Oxford, presented her work on Frequency Domain Holography to measure plasma wakefields, and Thomas Wilson showed the latest results on simulations from Strathclyde.
The meeting was attended by a record 28 participants, as new researchers have recently joined the project. The collaboration welcomed in particular Joshua Gregory for Lancaster University, Jack McGunigal for the University of Manchester, and Lewis Kennedy for Imperial College.
The next meeting, joining the whole international AWAKE community will take place in March 2024 in Liverpool.