Achievements and future goals of the LIGHT project at GSI

In the past two decades, the generation of intense ion beams based on laser-driven sources became an extensively investigated and promising field. The LIGHT collaboration (Laser Ion Generation, Handling and Transport) combines a laser-driven ion source with conventional accelerator technology. In this context, a laser-driven multi-MeV ion beamline was realized at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung. The local petawatt laser system PHELIX drives the TNSA source resulting in an exponentially decaying spectrum with protons up to an energy of 28 MeV. The laser accelerated protons are collimated at a chosen energy using a pulsed high-field solenoid. Afterwards, the collimated proton bunch is injected into a conventional rf cavity and rotated in longitudinal phase-space. Through this rotation, shaping the bunch in energy or time is possible. We achieved an energy compression of a spread less than 3% at a central energy of 8 MeV or pulse durations below 500 ps. In a second target chamber, 6 m away from the TNSA target, an additional solenoid was used for final focusing creating a focal spot of 1.1 mm x 1.2 mm (FWHM). In this talk, the full beamline with its focusing capabilities at the interaction point will be discussed. The final parameters reachable at the target point are crucial for the planning of future applications, which will be also presented.