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Accelerator science RSS feed

Accelerators form the backbone of SLAC's national user facilities. Research at SLAC is continually improving accelerators, both at SLAC and at other laboratories, and is also paving the way to a new generation of particle acceleration technology. 

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Advanced accelerators

Empty undulator hall

News Feature

The long – but not too long – cavity would ping-pong X-ray pulses inside of a particle accelerator facility to help capture nature’s fastest...

This cartoon figure shows how the cavity-based X-ray free electron laser works in general. The electron beam (blue) travels through an undulator (brown), which causes the beam to release X-ray pulses. These pulses bounce around a set of four mirrors, helping them become coherent, before they continue down the accelerator to experimental halls.
News Feature

The algorithm pairs machine-learning techniques with classical beam physics equations to avoid massive data crunching.

This is a representation of a particle beam traveling through an accelerator.
Illustration
Perovskites’ unusual response to light could explain the high efficiency of these next-generation solar cell materials.
Perovskites’ unusual response to light could explain the high efficiency of these next-generation solar cell materials.
Illustration

Scientists use a series of magnets to transform an electron bunch into a narrow current spike which then produces a very intense attosecond X-ray...

XLEAP illustration
Photograph

LCLS Undulator Hall with both soft X-ray undulators, left, and hard X-ray undulators, right. 

Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) Undulator Hall
News Feature

SLAC works with two small businesses to make its ACE3P software easier to use in supercomputer simulations for optimizing the shapes of accelerator structures.

A large, complex shape is seen against a blue background crisscrossed with white lines. The shape is dark blue and resembles a brick partially topped with a thick shark’s fin. Three areas of bright red, orange and green, are on the shape’s bottom edge.
Illustration

With help from two small businesses, SLAC’s vintage ACE3P software is spreading its wings to make supercomputing easier and faster.

A large, complex shape is seen against a blue background crisscrossed with white lines. The shape is dark blue and resembles a brick partially topped with a thick shark’s fin. Three areas of bright red, orange and green, are on the shape’s bottom edge.
News Feature

An extension of the Stanford Research Computing Facility will host several data centers to handle the unprecedented data streams that will be produced by...

SRCF-II
News Brief

Knowing a magnet’s past will allow scientists to customize particle beams more precisely in the future. As accelerators stretch for higher levels of performance...

A magnet on a test stand inside SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
News Feature

Edelen draws on machine learning to fine tune particle accelerators, while Kurinsky develops dark matter detectors informed by quantum information science.

Side by side photographs of a woman and a man.
Press Release

The facility, LCLS-II, will soon sharpen our view of how nature works on ultrasmall, ultrafast scales, impacting everything from quantum devices to clean energy.

LCLS-II cooldown