Accelerator Science

Particle accelerator systems have been key drivers for a broad array of fundamental discoveries and transformational scientific advances since the early 20^th century. Since their inception, they have also been core components of U.S. technological innovation and economic competitiveness.

The Accelerator Science program supports and fosters research that exploits the educational and discovery potential of basic accelerator physics research at academic institutions. A key goal of the program is to seed and develop research efforts in fundamental accelerator science at colleges and universities that will enable transformational discoveries in this crosscutting academic discipline. In particular, this program seeks to support research with the potential to disrupt existing paradigms and advance accelerator science at a fundamental level, such as enabling discoveries that lead to novel, compact, powerful, and/or cost-effective accelerators. Key questions addressed by the program include: What are the fundamental limitations affecting the acceleration, control, intensity, and quality of particle beams? What novel approaches can be employed to substantially increase accelerating gradients? How can developments in other fields lead to new approaches in accelerator science and beam physics?

This program aims to provide the foundation in knowledge and workforce upon which major advances in accelerator-driven technologies will be based. An important component of the program is the support and training of the next generation of accelerator scientists, including students, postdoctoral researchers, and junior faculty, who will lead innovations in the field and will form the backbone of the nation's highly trained accelerator workforce.

Proposals for experimental, theoretical, and/or simulation-based research are welcome. Priority will be given to those proposals that enable the discovery science supported by the MPS Division of Physics and do not augment ongoing work supported by other agencies.

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Proposals to the Physics Division must be submitted through the Division of Physics: Investigator-Initiated Research Projects solicitation.

The solicitation follows most of the requirements in the Grant Proposal Guide, but has additional requirements that relate primarily to proposers who anticipate having multiple sources of support, and proposals involving significant instrumentation development. The solicitation also has deadlines instead of target dates.

All proposals submitted to the Physics Division that are not governed by another solicitation (such as CAREER) should be submitted to this solicitation; otherwise they will be returned without review.