The EuPRAXIA collaboration met in Rome from 5th to 7th June to discuss proposals for the site of the laser-driven wakefield accelerator facility and possible Excellence Centres distributed around Europe.
The Conceptual Design Report (CDR) and the ESFRI application of EuPRAXIA envisioned a distributed infrastructure, with national Excellence Centres and two construction sites: a particle-driven facility located in Frascati, and a laser-driven one in a location to be determined.
Members of the collaboration presented their plans for Excellence Centres in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, covering topics such as laser-driven plasma technology, high-repetition rate lasers, computer simulations, diagnostics, and development of beamlines and applications.
For the second site, four proposals were presented and discussed, in the Czech Republic (ELI-Beamlines), Spain (CLPU), United Kingdom (EPAC) and Italy (Pisa).
This workshop was an important step in the preparatory phase as it starts an iterative process that will culminate with the implementation of the conceptual design and ESFRI proposal for EuPRAXIA. More discussions are expected on this important topic as the approach is optimized. Decisions will be taken in future collaboration boards.
Workshop homepage: