The German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding a new Research Training Group funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in nuclear physics at TU Darmstadt from 2016. The partner institution is Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). The research project, which will run until the end of 2020, will be funded with EUR 4.7 million.

A class of particle accelerators that is new in physics and still little researched enables the energy used to accelerate the particle beam to be largely recovered. For this purpose, the accelerated beam is slowed down again to low injection energies in the superconducting, electromagnetic acceleration resonators. The particle accelerators that function in this way are called Energy Recovery Linacs (ERLs). The new Research Training Group “Accelerator Science and Technology for Energy Recovery Linacs” will research the sources, control systems and beam dynamics of such ERLs.

The starting point for this is exceptionally favorable, as particle accelerators of this new type are currently being built at both TU Darmstadt and JGU, explains the Research Training Group’s spokesperson, Prof. Dr. Norbert Pietralla. At TU Darmstadt, for example, the superconducting, recirculating electron linear accelerator “S-DALINAC” is currently being converted into the first accelerator in Germany that can be operated in the ERL scheme. At JGU, the first high-current ERL operated at a German university, with the acronym “MESA”, is under construction as part of the “Precision Physics, Fundamental Interactions and Structure of Matter” (PRISMA) cluster of excellence.

The research and training concept of the co-worker takes up this special situation and brings together young researchers from the fields of accelerator physics and electrical engineering to conduct research in interlinked doctoral projects on the physics and Technics Department of ERLs.