Prospects of Hybrid Plasma- and Radiofrequency-Based Electron Acceleration at DESY

The field of particle acceleration in plasma wakes has seen remarkable progress in recent years. Accelerating gradients of more~than 10 GV/m can now be readily achieved using either ultra-short intense laser pulses or particle beams as wake drivers. The demonstration~of the first GeV electron beams and a general trend towards improved reproducibility, beam quality and control over the involved plasma~processes has led to plasma-acceleration techniques beginning to draw considerable interest in the traditional accelerator community. As a~consequence,~DESY, Germany's leading accelerator center, has established a research program for~plasma-based novel acceleration techniques with the goal of exploiting the synergetic combination of conventional and new accelerator technology. Such a concept offers an attractive pathway to study many mechanisms occurring in plasma-based accelerators, for example electron-beam-emittance evolution, extreme bunch compression, the controlled emission of betatron radiation, and staging of accelerating units. In addition, it is assumed that bypassing the difficult-to-master process of particle self-injection, which is utilized in all current laser-plasma acceleration schemes, will greatly enhance the reliability of such machines compared to the state-of-the-art.