ELIMAIA: A Laser-Driven Ion Accelerator for Multidisciplinary Applications
, Antonio Amico 2, Lucio Andò 2, Marco Borghesi 3, Stepan S. Bulanov 4, Sergei V. Bulanov 1, Denis Chatain 5, Antonín Fajstavr 1, Lorenzo Giuffrida 1, Filip Grepl 1, Satyabrata Kar 3, Josef Krasa 1, Daniel Kramer 1, Giuseppina Larosa 2, Renata Leanza 2, Tadzio Levato 1, Mario Maggiore 6, Lorenzo Manti 7, Jan Psikal 1, Giada Petringa 2, Roberto Versaci 1, Martina Zakova 1 and add
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Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript of Margarone et al., "ELIMAIA: a laser driven ion accelerator for multidisciplinary applications" summarizes the mission and expected parameters of the ELIMAIA beamline. The beamline is designed to provide short, energetic, stable and tunable bunches of ions produced at high repetition rate in an optical manner by a petawatt-class laser at the ELI Beamlines Facility, with applications mostly in research directed towards cancer radiotherapy.
After the concise introductory section, the state of the art of laser ion acceleration is summarized in section 2 of the manuscript. Different mechanisms to be explored with the help of ELIMAIA are described, such as Target Normal Sheath Acceleration and Radiation Pressure Acceleration, and even more recent schemes such as the magnetic vortex acceleration and the coil target approach. It is of great scientific interest to experimentally explore the applicability of different proposed mechanisms, and the current manuscript does a good job at summarizing the scientific plan at the facility. In section 3, the components of ELIMAIA-ELIMED are described in technical detail, such as the ion accelerator, the target delivery system, the ion diagnostics, ion beam transport, and dosimetry, providing helpful reference for experts working in the field.
The manuscript is basically publishable as it stands, with a very few potential amendments:
- It would be helpful for the readers to read more on the concept of capillary-discharge active lenses on a preprint version of the submitted manuscript cited as Ref. [20]; so the authors of this manuscript may encourage the authors of that manuscript to upload their article to the arxiv preprint server.
- Collocations such as "laser-accelerated ion beams" vs. "laser driven ion beams" should be hyphenated consequently.
- In the References, journal names should be abbreviated consequently. Most journals are abbreviated, while for some the whole name is used.
Author Response
We would like to thank the Referee for the fast and positive review of the manuscript.
A minor revision was carried out according to the Referee's remarks.
- It would be helpful for the readers to read more on the concept of capillary-discharge active lenses on a preprint version of the submitted manuscript cited as Ref. [20]; so the authors of this manuscript may encourage the authors of that manuscript to upload their article to the arxiv preprint server.
THE PAPER HAS RECENTLY APPEARED ONLINE AND THE FULL REFERENCE IS NOW REPORTED
- Collocations such as "laser-accelerated ion beams" vs. "laser driven ion beams" should be hyphenated consequently.
DONE
- In the References, journal names should be abbreviated consequently. Most journals are abbreviated, while for some the whole name is used.
DONE
Reviewer 2 Report
1. It may be better to update the state of the art review by including the recent works by Higginson et. al. [Nat. Comm. 9, 724 (2018)], where 94 MeV protons were obtained, and the observations of Nakatsutsumi et. al. [Nat. Com. 9, 280 (2018)] that self generated magnetic fields may be detrimental to TNSA mechanism.
2. In section 3.2 on Target delivery system, it would be better to give typical dimensions of the target array. Is there an estimate of how much area on the target would be affected by a typical high energy shot? (Maybe from RAL experiments?)
3. Please expand PEEK (line 299, page 8)
Author Response
We would like to thank the Referee for the fast and positive review of the manuscript.
A minor revision was carried out according to the Referee's remarks.
1. It may be better to update the state of the art review by including the recent works by Higginson et. al. [Nat. Comm. 9, 724 (2018)], where 94 MeV protons were obtained, and the observations of Nakatsutsumi et. al. [Nat. Com. 9, 280 (2018)] that self generated magnetic fields may be detrimental to TNSA mechanism.
DONE
2. In section 3.2 on Target delivery system, it would be better to give typical dimensions of the target array. Is there an estimate of how much area on the target would be affected by a typical high energy shot? (Maybe from RAL experiments?)
DONE
3. Please expand PEEK (line 299, page 8)
DONE
