Dielectric wakefield accelerator experiments at the SABER facility

Electron bunches with the unparalleled combination of high charge, low emittances, and short time duration, as first produced at the SLAC Final Focus Test Beam (FFTB), are foreseen to be produced at the SABER facility. These types of bunches have enabled wakefield driven accelerating schemes of multi-GV/m in plasmas. In the context of the Dielectric Wakefield Accelerators (DWA) such beams, having rms bunch length as short as 20 um, have been used to drive 100 um and 200 um ID hollow tubes above 20 GV/m surface fields. These FFTB tests enabled the measurement of a breakdown threshold in fused silica (with full data analysis still ongoing) [1]. With the construction and commissioning of the SABER facility at SLAC, new experiments would be made possible to test further aspects of DWAs including materials, tube geometrical variations, direct measurements of the Cerenkov fields, and proof of acceleration in tubes >10 cm in length. This collaboration will investigate breakdown thresholds and accelerating fields in new materials including CVD diamond. Here we describe the experimental plans, beam parameters, simulations, and progress to date as well as future prospects for machines based of DWA structures.