AWAKE: plasma wakefield acceleration using proton bunches

Plasma-based particle acceleration is one of the advanced methods proposed to accelerate charged particles at rates of 1-100GeV/m, much larger than in current radio-frequency-based accelerators (<200MeV/m). A particle bunch or a laser pulse can drive wakefields in plasma. These acceleration schemes are known as plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) and laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA), respectively.
The Advanced WAKEfield (AWAKE) experiment at CERN aims at using a proton bunch to drive wakefields with an amplitude of ~1GV/m in a long plasma (>10m). AWAKE takes advantage of the self-modulation instability (SMI) of long charged bunches in dense plasmas to transform the long proton bunch into a train of short bunches separated by the much shorter plasma wavelength.
Experiments starting towards the end of 2016 will aim at studying the SMI of the physics of the SMI of the proton bunch. In 2017 electrons generated by an RF-gun will be externally injected, trapped, sample the wakefields and will be accelerated.
I will give an introduction to PWFA. I will describe the AWAKE experiment, including its parameters and diagnostics, and outline its near term-goals. I will also give possible further experimental goals and longer prospect for PWFA with proton bunches.