Advanced Control Methods for Particle Accelerators (ACM4PA) 2019

Los Alamos is currently developing novel particle accelerator controls and diagnostics algorithms to enable higher quality beams with lower beam losses than is currently possible. The purpose of this workshop was to consider tuning and optimization challenges of a wide range of particle accelerators including linear proton accelerators such as the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE), rings such as the Advanced Photon Source (APS) synchrotron, free electron lasers (FEL) such as the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) and LCLS-II, the European X-ray Free Electron Laser (EuXFEL), the Swiss FEL, and the planned MaRIE FEL, and plasma wake-field accelerators such as FACET, FACET-II, and AWAKE at CERN. One major challenge is an the ability to quickly create very high quality, extremely intense, custom current and energy profile beams while working with limited real time non-invasive diagnostics and utilizing time-varying uncertain initial beam distributions and accelerator components. Currently, a few individual accelerator labs have been developing and applying their own diagnostics tools and custom control and ML algorithms for automated machine tuning and optimization. The goal of this workshop was to bring together a group of accelerator physicists and accelerator related control and ML experts in order to define which controls and diagnostics would be most useful for existing and future accelerators and to create a plan for developing a new family of algorithms that can be shared and maintained by the community.