We are pleased to announce the latest in the series of ICFA-endorsed workshops on the Physics and Applications of High Brightness Beams will be held at the Hotel Nacional in Havana, Cuba (located at Calle 0 esq. 21, Vedado, Ciudad de La Habana, Cuba), on the dates March 28-April 1, 2016.

The location of the workshop indicates a continuing commitment to outreach in our field, to include a wider range of participants, including scientists from developing countries. The tradition of this workshop is by now well established — but from inspection one may note a departure from recent versions of the workshop, with the omission of the word electron. Indeed, to recognize significant emerging trends in novel high brightness ion sources and historic interest in particle and nuclear physics in the host nation, this workshop will embrace next-generation high brightness ion sources. These will notably include ion beams based on laser plasma interaction, and the new experimental possibilities and applications — particularly in biomedical applications — opened by this exciting field. The biomedical theme, which is of high interest in particular to developing nations research portfolios, will be emphasized in this workshop. We note that high brightness ion beam physics was included in this workshop in the 1999 edition, with great synergy resulting.

As can be ascertained by the viewpoint adopted with respect to ion beams, this workshop will maintain and further refine the previous central thrusts of the meeting, to examine the state-of-the-art in high brightness beam physics and technology as it is applied in advanced accelerators and light sources. In the most recent incarnation of this series, a more ambitious agenda emerged, the effective joining advanced acceleration techniques and novel light sources into one application: the “5th generation light source”. This synthesis entails creating extremely compact, high brilliance short wavelength radiations sources enabled by beams accelerated in ultra-high gradient accelerators based on plasmas, lasers and intense beams; these beams in turn feed innovative, short period undulators. The advanced accelerators operate at unprecedented high fields, to above the GV/m level, and produce beams having extremely challenging length and time scales — microns and femtoseconds, respectively. Both the beam physics and revolutionary applications implied by the 5th generation light source require rethinking of the principles and experimental methods employed. New initiatives are now underway dedicated to the rapid adoption this exciting new scenario, aiming to yield a new type of compact light source within a decade. This focused effort will apply impetus to the development and maturation of such new methods, and as such may be viewed as an essential stepping-stone on the path to higher energy applications such as the linear collider.

Thus we are searching in this workshop to gather leaders in advanced and novel acceleration techniques, experts in the intricate physics and technology of free-electron lasers, practitioners of high brightness beam physics — including those developing cutting edge concepts such as plasma-based electron beam sources — and interdisciplinary researchers who have direct interest in two or more of these fields. The resulting discussions are intended to provide tangible and timely guidance on how to proceed with a motivating mission: the marriage to advanced accelerators and light sources. Similarly applications in ultra-fast, ultra-bright ion beams are just now emerging, and the multi-disciplinary character of the workshop is expected to provide critical input molding their development.

The conference proceedings will be published as a special issue in Nuclear Instruments and Methods Section A (NIMA), per agreement with Elsevier Press. Here the manuscripts will undergo the rigorous NIMA reviewing process under the editorial supervision of Alessandro Cianchi (Univ. Roma – Tor Vergata), and document the rapid developments in the high brightness beam community during the last several years.

We look forward to seeing you in March in Havana.

James Rosenzweig, UCLA (Workshop Co-Chair)
Massimo Ferrario, INFN-LNF (Workshop Co-Chair)
Fidel Antonio Castro Smirnov (Local chair)