The European Plasma Research Accelerator with Excellence in Applications (EuPRAXIA) is a distributed, compact and innovative accelerator facility based on plasma technology. By using plasma wakefields gradients EuPRAXIA will be a transformative step in the development of ultracompact accelerators that could be used for a wide range of fundamental and applied research applications. It is the important intermediate step between proof-of-principle experiments and ground-breaking, ultra-compact accelerators for photon science, structural biology, particle physics detector development, materials science, medical imaging, radiation therapy, protons sources for hadron therapy and industrial applications. EuPRAXIA was then included in 2021 in the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) Roadmap, which identifies those research facilities of pan-European importance that correspond to the long-term needs of the European research communities.
EuPRAXIA is the outcome of a consortium of 16 laboratories and universities from five European countries to prepare the Conceptual Design Report for the worldwide first high energy plasma-based accelerator. As of December 2020, the consortium has grown to 40 members and 11 observers. The scientific communities bring expertise from accelerator science and high energy physics, design and construction of leading accelerators like the LHC, advanced acceleration test facilities like SPARC and frontier laser projects like CLF, CILEX-APOLLON and ELI. The construction of an electron-driven plasma accelerator in the Frascati National Labs (EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB) is expected to be ready for operation in 2028. This site will also host the EuPRAXIA project headquarter.
Within the EuPRAXIA projet, a betatron radiation facility is also planned. This project, EuAPS (“EuPRAXIA Advanced Photon Source”), will be funded in the framework of “Next Generation EU” (by the Italian “Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza”, PNRR) to be host in the SPARC_LAB facility.
The EuPRAXIA Doctoral Network (EuPRAXIA-DN) is a new Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network (MSCA-DN) , offering 12 high level fellowships between universities, research centers, including Frascati, and industry that will carry out an interdisciplinary and cross-sector plasma accelerator research and training program for the new EuPRAXIA research infrastructure.
EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB EuAPS