CERN Accelerating science

The Advanced Wakefield Experiment (AWAKE), to be constructed at CERN, will be the first experiment to demonstrate proton-driven plasma wakefield acceleration. The 400 GeV proton beam from the CERN SPS will excite a wakefield in a plasma cell several meters in length. To probe the plasma wakefield, electrons of 10-20 MeV will be injected into the wakefield following the head of the proton beam. Simulations indicate that electrons will be accelerated to GeV energies by the plasma wakefield. The AWAKE spectrometer is intended to measure both the peak energy and energy spread of these accelerated electrons. Under certain conditions it is also possible to use the spectrometer to measure the transverse beam emittance. The expected resolution of these measurements is investigated for various beam distributions, taking into account an optimised vacuum chamber and scintillator screen design and results of beam and optical tests.