This report presents the conceptual design of a new European research infrastructure EuPRAXIA. The concept has been established over the last four years in a unique collaboration of 41 laboratories within a Horizon 2020 design study funded by the European Union. EuPRAXIA is the first European project that develops a dedicated particle accelerator research infrastructure based on novel plasma acceleration concepts and laser technology. It focuses on the development of electron accelerators and underlying technologies, their user communities, and the exploitation of existing accelerator infrastructures in Europe. EuPRAXIA has involved, amongst others, the international laser community and industry to build links and bridges with accelerator science — through realising synergies, identifying disruptive ideas, innovating, and fostering knowledge exchange. The Eu-PRAXIA project aims at the construction of an innovative electron accelerator using laser- and electron-beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration that offers a significant reduction in size and possible savings in cost over current state-of-the-art radiofrequency-based accelerators. The foreseen electron energy range of one to five gigaelectronvolts (GeV) and its performance goals will enable versatile applications in various domains, e.g. as a compact free-electron laser (FEL), compact sources for medical imaging and positron generation, table-top test beams for particle detectors, as well as deeply penetrating X-ray and gamma-ray sources for material testing. EuPRAXIA is designed to be the required stepping stone to possible future plasma-based facilities, such as linear colliders at the high-energy physics (HEP) energy frontier. Consistent with a high-confidence approach, the project includes measures to retire risk by establishing scaled technology demonstrators. This report includes preliminary models for project implementation, cost and schedule that would allow operation of the full Eu-PRAXIA facility within 8—10 years.

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A laserwire transverse electron beam size measurement system has been developed and operated at the Accelerator Test Facility 2 at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, Japan (KEK). Special electron beam optics were developed to create an approximately 1 × 100 μm (vertical × horizontal) electron beam at the laserwire location, which was profiled using 150 mJ, 71 ps laser pulses with a wavelength of 532 nm. The precise characterization of the laser propagation allows the non-Gaussian laserwire scan profiles caused by the laser divergence to be deconvolved. A minimum vertical electron beam size of 1.07 AE 0.06ðstatÞ AE 0.05ðsysÞ μm was measured. A vertically focusing quadrupole just before the laserwire was varied while making laserwire measurements and the projected vertical emittance was measured to be 82.56 AE 3.04 pm rad.

Optical transition radiation (OTR) has become a commonly used method for 2D beam imaging measurements. In the Accelerator Test Facility 2 (ATF2) at KEK, beam sizes smaller than the OTR point spread function have been measured. Simulations of the OTR imaging system have been performed using the ZEMAX software to study the effects of optical errors such as aberrations, diffraction, and misalignments of optical components. This paper presents a comparison of simulations of the OTR point spread function with experimental data obtained at ATF2. It shows how the quantification and control of optical errors impacts on optimizing the resolution of the system. We also show that the OTR point spread function needs to be predicted accurately to optimize any optical system and to predict the error made on measurement.