BELLA Center research is primarily focused on the development and application of compact accelerators for subatomic particles. Laser-plasma accelerators, or LPAs, achieve electron energies at or above GeV in distances of only centimeters: an accelerating gradient thousands of times higher than is achievable through conventional techniques.
The BELLA Center drives advancement in LPAs via experimental and theoretical study of the interaction of intense laser pulses with gas, plasma and solid targets, and related applications and technologies. Major areas of inquiry are summarized below. We invite you to explore those links to learn more about our research.
This page tells about the background and motivation of our work with laser-plasma accelerators. For recent achievements, see the News tab at the top of this page. These review articles give technical and general summaries of our work.
High Energy PhysicsTechnologies for compact future colliders to extend the energy reach of particle physics |
Nuclear Nonproliferation, Security & ScienceAccelerators and systems to develop transportable sources of quasi-monoenergetic MeV photons |
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Compact Future Light SourcesDeveloping the next generation of coherent light sources based on laser-plasma accelerators |
Plasma SourcesEnabling technology for high-energy, high-quality beams from LPAs |
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Computer ModelingAdvancing accelerator physics and computing with state-of-the-art simulation tools |