CERN Accelerating science

We describe the main ideas, promises and challenges related to proton-driven plasma wakefield acceleration. Existing high-energy proton beams have the potential to accelerate electron beams to the TeV scale in a single plasma stage. In order to drive a wake effectively the available beams must be either highly compressed or microbunched. The self-modulation instability has been suggested as a way to microbunch the proton beams. The AWAKE project at CERN is currently the only planned proton-driven plasma acceleration experiment. A self-modulated CERN SPS beam will be used to drive a plasma wake. We describe the design choices and experimental setup for AWAKE, and discuss briefly the short-term objectives as well as longer-term ideas for the project.