Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

Argonne National Laboratory

The worldwide landscape of synchrotron radiation facilities has been transformed by the arrival of 4th generation storage ring (4GSR) light sources. Utilizing multi-bend achromat (MBA) lattices, these facilities reduce electron beam emittance to a few hundred picometers or less, increasing X-ray brightness and transverse coherence by orders of magnitude compared to 3rd generation rings. Translating these ambitious lattice designs into operational facilities that deliver scientific results for x-ray users presents significant accelerator physics and engineering challenges. Using the recent APS upgrade as an example, this talk traces the path from physics design and simulation to engineering, construction, commissioning, and routine user operations. We survey solutions and experience from operating 4GSR facilities, examining key design choices such as hybrid MBA lattices, reverse bends, longitudinal gradient dipoles, and injection schemes. Of particular interest is the degree to which simulation-based predictions of emittance, injection efficiency, and lifetime are achieved in reality. We end with a survey of upcoming projects and prospects for improvements to existing 4GSRs.

European Spallation Source

The European Spallation Source (ESS) is a multidisciplinary research facility under construction in Lund, Sweden, where neutrons will be used to probe the structure and behaviour of a wide range of materials down to the atomic level. At its core is the construction, testing and commissioning of a 5 MW long-pulse neutron spallation source, including one of the most powerful linear superconducting RF proton accelerators ever built. The facility is expected to welcome around 2,000 researchers each year from around the world to carry out experiments across the natural and engineering sciences, including research related to energy, health and the environment. ESS has the ambition of becoming the world's most impactful accelerator-based neutron source. The ESS will have an initial suite of 15 state-of-the-art neutron instruments that will be available to the scientific community, with the instrument suite continually expanding over the following years to increase both capability and capacity. The official user programme is scheduled to begin in 2028. Accelerator performance for initial operations will be up to 2 MW / 870 MeV. The status of facility commissioning and neutron production, operational model and future plans will be presented.

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory has two major accelerator facilities, LANSCE (a high-power proton RF accelerator) and DARHT (a dual axis electron induction accelerator). Both accelerators have robust user programs and both have detailed upgrade plans, including the LANSCE Modernization Project (LAMP) which recently received CD-1 approval from DOE. This talk will describe the accelerators support these facilities, what is done with them, and upgrade plans.

GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research

The FAIR accelerator facility will provide heavy ion beams for frontier research in nuclear physics and related domains. It had been planned to take the new SuperFRS into operation at end of 2027 and the new SIS-100 synchrotron at the end of 2028. The required heavy ion beams will be generated in the UNILAC linear accelerator, which supports world-leading GSI research since 1975. UNILAC had been continuously maintained and optimized, however, its majority of technical components, including the RF system with 20 MW of installed peak power, date back to 1975. On 5th February 2026 a short circuit in the UNILAC RF gallery initiated a major fire. Due to strict safety policies, the quick reaction of the on site personnel and the excellent work of the fire brigades all personnel could be kept safe and the fire was kept constrained to the RF gallery. Nevertheless the full UNILAC RF system was destroyed and significant secondary damage was induced in electronics racks and other equipment by water and soot. As a consequence the ion beam operation for GSI and FAIR is interrupted. In response to this setback a major project was started with the goals (1) to restore the full UNILAC capabilities, (2) to provide interim ion beams for FAIR commissioning and science and (3) to remove other possible critical points of failures in the FAIR injection chain and the GSI accelerator complex. The talk will discuss the GSI fire event and the lessons learnt. It will then present the goals and plans of the restoration project and of its various sub-projects.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) are now ubiquitous throughout science and society. Despite their enormous potential and continued investment, implementing new AI/ML techniques at operating accelerator facilities presents unique challenges across the accelerator complex. These include extensive data acquisition and synchronization, high-performance computing accessible from control networks, model training, deployment, and continuous learning. This talk will summarize the state of the art in AI/ML implementation and describe high-impact applications spanning a wide range of operating timescales—from systems that respond to live accelerator conditions within microseconds to those that guide operations and optimization over hours or days. It will also examine the novel infrastructure, expertise, and operational requirements needed to deploy these applications reliably at operating accelerator facilities.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Compact free-electron lasers (FELs) that are driven by plasma-based accelerators have been a dream for years. Over the past few years several milestone experiments have demonstrated their basic feasibility, and the BELLA lab at LBNL has recently demonstrated FEL gains exceeding 1000 at optical wavelengths. We report on these findings, and discuss our next steps to towards demonstrating FEL gain to full saturation. We then examine the present status of plasma-based sources regarding reliability and stability, and discuss a possible route towards improving these characteristics to the level required for an operational light source.

ALBA-CELLS Synchrotron

Several synchrotron light sources are currently designing a lattice upgrade to reach low (sub-nm) emittances, which inevitably entails a significant beam lifetime reduction. In view of the ALBA lattice upgrade, it was decided to evaluate different methods using the current ALBA storage ring to reach large betatron coupling as a way to increase the lifetime. In a first attempt, coupling was introduced by means of static skew quadrupolar magnets and by tuning the working point onto the resonance 𝑄𝑥 = 𝑄𝑦, but in a realistic scenario, some kind of tune feedback is required to counteract the unavoidable tune drifts and fluctuations that would drive the system out of resonance. Furthermore, the condition 𝑄𝑥 =𝑄𝑦 constrains the linear optics resulting in an important lack of flexibility. Therefore a second method is proposed, based on the excitation of the coupling resonance with an ac skew quadrupole driven at the frequency 𝑓rev·⁡(𝑄𝑥 −𝑄𝑦). In this case, we used the existing four-electrode tune excitation stripline recabled as a skew quadrupole. A fast tune tracking system was implemented to drive the skew quadrupole exactly on the resonance despite the tune fluctuations. This talk goes over the collected results and experiences, aiming to put into light pitfalls and limits of the application of coupling to achieve round beams in a synchrotron light source.

Tsinghua University in Beijing

High-brightness electron sources are essential for enabling and enhancing free-electron lasers, ultrafast electron diffraction and imaging, inverse Compton scattering sources, and other emerging applications. Combining photocathodes offering high quantum efficiency (QE), low mean transverse energy (MTE), and visible-light operation with the highest achievable accelerating field represents one of the most direct and effective routes to improving beam brightness. However, systematic studies and reliable operation of such high-performance photocathodes at very high accelerating gradients remain challenging, primarily due to stringent vacuum requirements. To address these limitations, we have developed an ultrahigh-vacuum, high-gradient S-band RF gun that substantially extends the operational lifetime of alkali antimonide photocathodes. In this work, we report measurements of the QE, MTE, and their dependence on excitation wavelength, paving the way for a new operational regime for high-brightness electron sources.

Nevada National Security Site

Scorpius is a next-generation electron induction linear accelerator currently under construction for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration to support advanced radiographic experiments for stockpile stewardship. The project is a collaboration between Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), and the Nevada National Security Sites (NNSS). The facility is located approximately 1,000 feet underground at the Nevada National Security Site and is designed to produce a minimum of four high-current electron pulses for flash X-ray radiography of dynamic experiments. The accelerator will deliver electron beams with energies of approximately 22 MeV, peak currents near 1.5 kA, and pulse widths near 80 ns. The facility integrates advanced solid-state pulsed-power systems, beam transport, diagnostics, and controls to achieve reliable multi-pulse operation and high radiographic performance. Building on decades of experience with linear induction accelerators while incorporating significant advances in beam dynamics and system integration, Scorpius represents the most advanced electron induction linac constructed to date. This talk presents an overview of the accelerator concept, key design features, and project status, and discusses the expected performance and its role in enabling next-generation, multi-frame high-resolution radiography experiments.

European Organization for Nuclear Research

CERN’s Antimatter Factory provides low-energy antiprotons for a diverse programme of precision experiments investigating the fundamental properties of antimatter. Producing these beams requires antiprotons generated at relativistic energies to be collected, cooled and decelerated over several orders of magnitude before being transferred to the experiments and captured in electromagnetic traps. The facility comprises the Antiproton Decelerator (AD) and the Extra Low ENergy Antiproton ring (ELENA). The AD presently delivers approximately 6x10^7 antiprotons at 5.3 MeV every two minutes, while ELENA further decelerates the beam to 100 keV and distributes several low-emittance bunches to up to four experiments. The introduction of ELENA has substantially increased the facility’s experimental capacity and improved the efficiency with which antiprotons can be captured and used. Recent highlights from the AD and ELENA experimental programme include precision 1S–2S spectroscopy of trapped antihydrogen, measurements of the gravitational behaviour of antihydrogen, precision spectroscopy of exotic atoms such as antiprotonic helium and positronium, progress towards the production of antihydrogen ions, investigations of neutron skins in exotic nuclei, parts-per-billion measurements of the antiproton magnetic moment, and recent advances in antimatter transport. These achievements, together with the growing complexity and scientific ambitions of the experimental programme, place increasingly demanding requirements on beam performance, reliability and long-term availability. This presentation will review the accelerator chain and its principal beam-physics and operational challenges, summarise the present performance of the AD-ELENA complex, and discuss consolidation priorities and possible future developments for CERN’s low-energy antiproton programme.

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

Classical double-aperture Young interferometry at optical wavelengths is widely used in accelerators to provide a one-dimensional transverse beam size measurement. Recently, we have improved this technique dramatically using two-dimensional interferometric imaging techniques developed for radio astronomy. We combine multi-hole, non-redundant aperture masks at optical wavelengths with Fourier plane self-calibration techniques from radio astronomy, to perform real-time, two-dimensional transverse beam size measurements from a single-shot interferogram on millisecond timescales. The technique has been demonstrated at the ALBA synchrotron light source using masks with up to 12 holes [Nikolic et al. arXiv:2405.12090; Torino et al. arXiv:2607.19991; Iriso et al. arXiv:2409.11135], for which we recover the Gaussian beam profile to ~ 1% accuracy. The self-calibration process entails joint derivation of the source shape and the complex gains for each aperture, thereby correcting for non-uniform illumination across the aperture plane. The gain phases provide a measurement of pathlengths through the optical system, thereby representing a real-time wavefront sensor with nanometer precision, or better [Carilli et al. arXiv:2503.10820]. We have also demonstrated the technique in near-IR astronomy using the aperture mask on the James Webb Space Telescope to image dusty binary stars. Most recently, the technique has been applied at the LHC, and we are currently improving mask design and processing to characterize non-Gaussian beam shapes, increase the SNR to perform beam halo measurements, and obtain better wavefront sampling for multi-term 2D Zernike polynomial fitting.

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Cooling intense proton bunches at high energy is a major challenge. A robust cooling system operating at collision energies of the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), while not part of the project baseline, would greatly improve luminosity and significantly advance the facility's long-term scientific potential. We propose a design for a non-magnetized, RF-based electron cooler to provide the required cooling at EIC collision energies. While electron cooling is a well-established technique at low energies, extending it to \gamma \about 100-300 for the EIC represents a significant advancement that will pave the way for high-energy electron cooling applications.

Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics

The talk will report on the experimental demonstration of plasma-based electron acceleration using laser-generated plasma filament as acceleration stage. The experiments are performed at SPARC_LAB (INFN - Frascati). The work builds on a complete experimental and theoretical characterisation of plasma filaments generated by low-energy (10 mJ), self-guided femtosecond laser pulses in low-pressure nitrogen [1]. This approach allows for proposing plasma filaments as tunable, high repetition-rate, low-energy dissipation plasma acceleration stages, with potential scalability of the interaction length to the meter scale. These features make filament-based stages particularly attractive for future light sources facilities based on plasma accelerators, as EuPRAXIA and EuPRAXIA-related systems. This work could be of broad interest because it introduces, for the first time, a beam-driven plasma acceleration stage based on the nonlinear self-guided propagation of an ultrashort laser pulse, rather than externally confined or preformed plasma structures. Beyond particle acceleration, this concept naturally connects to several topical areas, including nonlinear light–matter interaction, laser filamentation physics, compact accelerator technologies, and advanced plasma photonics.

Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

Two accelerator improvement projects have been proposed and developed to mitigate the beam halo formation after the liquid lithium stripper at FRIB. The first project deals with a stronger beam focusing into the liquid lithium film to suppress beam halo formation caused by non-uniform lithium film thickness. The second project is the development of a second-harmonic cavity to increase the post-stripper longitudinal acceptance to accommodate the longitudinal halo of the bunch. Both systems will be completed, installed, and commissioned before the end of 2026. As a result, we will substantially reduce beam losses in the post-stripper superconducting linac and prevent possible degradation of SC cavities. The design features of new devices and commissioning results will be reported.

Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute

DC septum magnets are key components in advancing sustainable accelerator design. Conventional direct-drive designs have long forced septum conductors to operate at extremely high current densities to sustain an intense deflecting magnetic field while preserving a nearly zero-field region nearby, making them a major source of energy dissipation and heat generation. This nomination highlights two independent solutions to the persistent problem. First, the nominee has successfully demonstrated a permanent magnet-based septum magnet capable of deflecting multi-GeV electron beams, entirely removing the requirements for excitation power and cooling [1]. This innovative technology has been adopted for the green upgrade of SPring-8, SPring-8-II. Furthermore, the thin septum architecture developed for the permanent magnet design enabled a configuration that significantly increases the coil cross-section in an electromagnet version, eventually leading to a 25-fold power consumption reduction [2]. This breakthrough has already been commissioned for beam injection at the newly launched NanoTerasu synchrotron radiation facility. The two advancements now provide sustainable and robust solutions in accelerator designs.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Phase space painting is an important technique to mitigate space charge in high-power hadron rings. Eigenpainting is a new painting method in which particles are injected along eigenvectors of the ring transfer matrix. The method could be leveraged to build near-equilibrium distributions with very small emittance in four-dimensional phase space. This talk reports the first experimental tests of eigenpainting at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), including the optimization of the injection system and measurement of the accumulated phase space distribution. I will also describe planned experiments and simulations to study the method performance at high intensities and possible applications to future machines.

Pohang Accelerator Laboratory

PAL-EUV is a 400 MeV compact synchrotron dedicated to EUV radiation at 13.5 nm for semiconductor R&D, constructed within a 15 m x 15 m footprint at Pohang Accelerator Laboratory. The facility, consisting of a linac, booster ring, and storage ring, completed construction and commissioning in 2023. The speaker would present the design, commissioning results, and operational status of this unique accelerator-based EUV source for industrial applications.

Paul Scherrer Institut

X-ray free-electron lasers have revolutionized science with their unprecedented peak brilliance and ultrashort pulses. This talk reviews the current state of X-ray facilities and explores the next frontier. The presentation will focus on shaping the FEL pulses (pulse length control pulses, coherence control), new development of the driving injectors and accelerators and future target applications for FELs.

TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator center

A key limitation to the performance of SRF based accelerators is contamination; external particulates (aka dust) present on the cavity surface trigger field emission, a phenomenon where electrons tunnel through the cavity surface due to strong electric fields. Field emission is actively observed at the TRIUMF electron linear accelerator (e-Linac), showing a progressive onset throughout operation, despite cavities undergoing stringent cleaning procedures prior to installation. We investigate whether micron-scale particulates generated by accelerator components during operation migrate into SRF cavities and contribute to the onset of field emission. These grains can acquire electrostatic charge in the radiation environment of an accelerator, and their composition and charge-to-mass ratios are largely unknown and unique to each facility. Experiments using an in-vacuum particle counter are being conducted to study their charging and lofting dynamics and to inform mitigation strategies for maintaining SRF accelerator performance.

High Energy Accelerator Research Organization

Accurate beam halo diagnostics and effective halo collimation are essential for modern MW-class high-intensity proton accelerators. To address this challenge, J-PARC has developed an advanced beam halo monitor capable of measuring both the beam core and halo with a dynamic range of six orders of magnitude. The first unit was installed in the 3-GeV injection beam transport line to measure the halo of the beam transported to the J-PARC main ring (MR). The system combines optical transition radiation from a thin titanium foil for the beam core with fluorescence from a chromium-doped alumina screen, enabling halo diagnostics over a relative beam intensity range of 10^-3 to 10^-5. A second unit will be installed in the J-PARC MR in 2026 to measure the injected beam for about 20 turns. Combined measurements with the upstream monitor will allow phase-space evaluation of beam halo before and after injection and detailed studies of halo collimation and beam halo dynamics. Based on this technology originally developed at J-PARC, the J-PARC group has led the development of a halo diagnostic system for the FNAL 8-GeV injection beam within US-Japan collaboration. The presentation will highlight these developments and their impact on halo control in MW-class proton accelerators.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

The proton injector for the Integrable Optics Test Accelerator (IOTA) at Fermilab has been commissioned to deliver beam currents of over 10 mA, with over 1 mA successfully stored in the ring. This capability enables a broad range of intense beam studies in support of Fermilab's scientific program, including PIP-II warm front end startup and beyond. The initial proton run was dedicated to diagnostics checkout, lattice tuning, and injection optimization. An ongoing shutdown is being used for maintenance and installation of new equipment, including a dual-frequency RF cavity, ahead of the scientific run scheduled to begin in September. Ionization Profile Monitors will be installed in January to enable turn-by-turn beam size measurements and support dynamics optimization of space-charge-dominated beams. The scientific program will investigate integrable optics with one and two integrals of motion in the presence of space charge, soliton formation, and longitudinal phase space manipulations. This talk will report the first results of the scientific program together with highlights of the commissioning campaign.

TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator center

TRIUMF's long shutdown in 2026 will have brought ARIEL, the Advanced Rare Isotope Laboratory out of the major construction phase and ready for commissioning. ARIEL will multiply the RIB beam availability at TRIUMF and include the highest power photo fission RIB production facility in the world. This contribution should present the facility and research reach of ARIEL, the status of the facility construction, the lessons learnt from the construction phase, as well as presenting the plans for commissioning and initial operations.

Institute of High Energy Physics

Radiotherapy using very-high-energy electron (VHEE) beams (50-300 MeV) has attracted considerable attention due to its advantageous dose deposition characteristics, enabling deep penetration and easy manipulation by magnetic components. One promising approach to compactly delivering these high energy electron beams in a cost-effective manner is laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA), which offers ultra-strong accelerating gradients. However, the transition from this concept to a functional machine intended for tumor treatment remains elusive. Here we present the self-developed prototype for LWFA-based VHEE radiotherapy, exhibiting compactness (occupying less than 5 m2) and long-term operational stability (validated over a period of one month). Subsequently, we employ this device to irradiate a tumor implanted in a mouse model. Following a dose delivery of 5.8 ± 0.2 Gy with precise tumor conformity, all irradiated mice exhibit pronounced control of tumor growth. For comparison, this tumor-control efficacy is similar to that achieved using commercial X-ray radiotherapy equipment operating at equivalent doses. These results demonstrate a compact and stable laser-driven VHEE system dedicated for preclinical studies involving small animal models and its promising prospects for future clinical translation in cancer therapy.

GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research

Slow collisions of co-circulating heavy ions near the Coulomb barrier provide access to transient quasi-molecular states, enabling electron exchange processes. For systems with a combined nuclear charge exceeding the critical value Zcr ≈173, such collisions may generate supercritical electromagnetic fields capable of triggering spontaneous electron–positron pair creation via quantum electrodynamic vacuum decay. A conceptually elegant realization of the beam–chaser scheme involves circulating two ion beams along a common closed orbit with identical magnetic rigidity but different velocities. This approach was experimentally demonstrated for the first time in 2025 at the Experimental Storage Ring (ESR) at GSI, Germany. Bare and hydrogen-like uranium beams, with energies of 400 and 393 MeV/u, respectively, were simultaneously stored, and their spatial overlap was confirmed by beam-scraping measurements. This presentation reviews the complete experimental proof of principle, summarizes the key results, and discusses further developments of the concept.

University of Hamburg

DESY, the University of Hamburg, and Fermilab are collaborating on an experiment to search for high-frequency gravitational waves (GWs) in the 10 kHz to 100 MHz range, using superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) cavities to detect tiny harmonic deformations, induced by GWs, that change the boundary conditions of the oscillating electromagnetic field. We briefly motivate this search and address its challenging environmental requirements: an LLRF system beyond state-of-the-art accuracy and resolution, and a seismic noise-mitigated cryostat at 1.8 K. The focus is the warm and cold commissioning of a prototype cavity built 20 years ago during the MAGO collaboration. Cryogenic tests at Fermilab and DESY down to 2 K achieved the targeted 11 kHz mode splitting after tuning, confirmed high quality factors after transferring processes to this unusual cavity geometry, revealed transfer-function characteristics relevant for LLRF control, an unwanted mode coupling from multipacting and mechanical quality factors below theoretical expectations. All those results lead to the design of an optimized cavity geometry and improved LLRF system, paving the way toward a first physics run in an uncharted GW phase space.

Institute of High Energy Physics

Automatic differentiation (AD) is emerging new opportunities in accelerator beam dynamics and beam control by enabling efficient gradient evaluation for optimization, inference, and control. This talk will review the past development, current status, and future prospects of AD in accelerator physics, with representative examples including Cheetah, JuTrack, and SciBmad. Emphasis will be placed on applications to beam dynamics modeling, online optimization, and differentiable digital twins, as well as on key challenges such as nonlinear beam dynamics, optics control and future opportunities in digital twins for particle accelerator.

Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) is a high-power heavy ion accelerator facility at Michigan State University completed in 2022. Its driver linac is designed to accelerate all stable ions to energies above 200 MeV/u with beam power of up to 400 kW. Currently, FRIB is operating up to 20 kW, delivering multiple primary beam species. The beam dump absorbs approximately 75% of the primary beam power. The existing static beam dump head can accommodate up to 30 kW operation, with a planned transition to an enhanced static beam dump design and eventual rotational beam dump for above 50 kW. Presented here is an overview of the mechanical designs of the beam dump, challenges, and lessons learned from operations.

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility

The promise of a self-driving particle accelerator — one that tunes itself, adapts to changing demands, and ultimately drives the experiment it serves toward greater discovery — has long motivated the accelerator community, and recent national priorities have only sharpened that motivation. We present a vision for AI-native accelerators, in which artificial intelligence shapes a facility's design, diagnostics, and operation from the outset, rather than being retrofitted onto systems built for human control. Drawing on parallel developments in self-driving vehicles and robotics, we argue that autonomy depends on a machine having a working model of its own environment. It must know where it has operated before, where it is now, and where it needs to go, expressed as a learned representation of machine state rather than raw signal streams. We describe a framework built around this idea for tuning and control, one aimed at transferring a skill that today lives largely in expert intuition into something a machine can learn directly. We also touch on the safety architecture this requires, including sandboxed validation on digital twins and layered safety controls, as well as how operators interact with such a system through natural language. This is emerging work, grounded in and drawing on efforts across the accelerator community, and we offer it here as a direction for the field to pursue together.

Paul Scherrer Institut

To provide fully controllable elliptical polarisation to all experimental stations of the SwissFEL facility, spanning soft to hard x-rays, the PSI ID group is developing a novel undulator concept based on HTS REBCO tapes. The proposed design enables the superposition of right-handed and left-handed helical fields with comparable strength, allowing the generation of horizontal and vertical linear polarisation with similar field amplitudes and continuous tuning across all elliptical states. Owing to the compactness of the concept, polarisation rotation could also be achieved through a physical rotation of the coil assembly or its cryostat. This presentation will introduce the new winding scheme and the underlying REBCO tape technology, and will summarise the expected magnetic field performance for parameter sets relevant to future SwissFEL upgrades. Particular emphasis will be placed on the remaining challenges and the substantial R&D effort required to establish this approach as a robust undulator technology, including issues related to persistent currents, quench protection, and automated winding processes.

Brookhaven National Laboratory

The Electron-Ion Collider is the next-generation nuclear physics collider designed to enable high-luminosity collisions between polarized electron beams and polarized proton and ion beams over a broad range of center-of-mass energies. Realizing the EIC requires the integration of state-of-the-art accelerator technologies, careful system-level design, and coordinated R&D across multiple accelerator subsystems. An extensive accelerator R&D program has been carried out to prototype and validate key components needed for EIC operation. These efforts span polarized sources, superconducting magnets, high-intensity ion beamline inserts, RF and SRF systems, interaction-region technologies, and other critical accelerator systems. This presentation will summarize the key design features of the EIC accelerator complex and highlight recent R&D achievements that support its technical readiness. Particular emphasis will be placed on progress in the new electron injection system, a critical element for achieving the required electron beam quality, reliability, and overall EIC performance.

Institute of Modern Physics

European Organization for Nuclear Research

In recent years, novel investigations of non-linear beam dynamics, and in particular its use to manipulate the transverse phase space, have begun to enable improvements in a wide range of processes, including multi-turn extraction and injection, transition crossing, halo cleaning, as well as cooling and redistribution of transverse beam emittances. This contribution will review these developments and examine them in detail, while also exploring potential future directions for enhancing performance through non-linear beam dynamics.

High Energy Accelerator Research Organization

SuperKEKB is an electron–positron collider that employs the nano-beam and crab-waist schemes to achieve the world’s highest luminosity and produce large samples of B-meson pairs. SuperKEKB achieved a peak luminosity of 5.3e34 cm⁻² s⁻¹ in 2026. As a luminosity-frontier collider, however, SuperKEKB has faced several challenges that limit further improvements in luminosity, including a short beam lifetime associated with the small dynamic aperture, impedance effects, beam-beam blow-up, and unexpected, rapid beam losses known as Sudden Beam Loss (SBL). Recent progress in understanding and addressing these limitations through beam commissioning from 2025 to 2027 will be presented. The remaining challenges and their possible mitigation strategies toward further improvements in luminosity performance will also be discussed, together with prospects for future operation.

Shanghai Advanced Research Institute

SHINE is an 8 GeV superconducting X-ray FEL designed to cover a broad photon energy range of 0.2–15 keV at a 1 MHz repetition rate. As one of the next-generation high-average-power XFEL facilities worldwide, it is now in an advanced stage of construction. First FEL light is targeted for 2026, and routine user operation is expected to begin in 2027. This talk will report the most recent FEL commissioning results and give an updated status of the entire SHINE facility.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Mastering complex material and chemical transformations provides a pathway to advancing new technologies to improving the health, security, and prosperity of the 21st century. X-ray Free Electron Lasers (XFEL) have an important role to play in the discovery of design principles for these complex transformations by capturing them with atom resolution in space and time. The impact of XFEL science depends critically on identifying research challenges where X-ray laser methods dependent on the unique properties of an XFEL directly address gaps in our understanding that slow the pace of research progress. Given the limited access to XFEL capabilities, enhancing the pace of progress will require a new level of coordination between accelerator and X-ray scientists in conjunction with domain experts in the targeted applications.