Preparatory Phase
The Preparatory Phase of the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) will address all the critical aspects related to the construction of ELI.
The technical work will also be quite different since the laser will represent a major leap forward in the development of technologies associated with OPCPA and/or the Ti:Sapphire amplification chain. Even the safety issue (radio-protection) will be apart from other laser facilities due to the high repetition rate of ELI and the novelty of the accelerators.
Through the Support action, which is the central part of this project, we will work out most of the questions about organization, strategic, legal, finance and safety issues (5 work packages -WP) of the Extreme Light Infrastructure. The work will be divided into two main phases. First, the countries that have already expressed their desire to host ELI will prepare a full document on the implementation site including in particular all the aspects relevant to the operation of ELI.
Then, when the host site is identified by the contributing Funding Agencies, the work will consist in finalising all documents (legal, governance, financial etc) to allow starting the construction right by the end of the Preparatory Phase (ELI-PP).
Safety issue is a priority of ELI since we will mix high-intensity lasers and secondary sources of energetic particles or x-rays. The choices to be made within this WP will strongly impact on the building design and then its costs. We will also work out the decommissioning. The setting up of access rules and safety training (governance) will be crucial to ensure the highest level of safety to every ELI personnel or user. Part of the work will be sub contracted to specialists.
Regarding the Technical work package, there will be development works purely dedicated to the preparation of the construction of ELI. All the research on laser or secondary sources will be achieved outside the ELI-PP through national projects based on prototypes, like ILE (one laser arm of ELI) or PFS. Part of the objectives of this WP will be to specify the laser architecture and the purpose of each target area so as to design its layout and the complete IR beam distribution including remote control. Afterwards, based on the conclusions of the work carried out by the Safety group, we will start designing the building, that will provide us with a fair estimate of the total construction and operating costs of ELI. After receiving feedback from the other work packages, the identification of the host site and in-depth discussions with identified users, we will then start the final conception of ELI (target areas etc). The ready-to-build design of ELI should be achieved by the end of the ELI-PP.
The networking tasks of the ELI-PP will serve two objectives. First, it will be the glue within ELI to ensure that all the technical work done in different countries will really converge to the ELI-site group. Different approaches of the same technical point will be undertaken simultaneously by several groups for the sake of cross-comparison, that will be done through regular, small, targeted meetings. Networking will also be used to advertise ELI in Europe and worldwide, to enhance its attractiveness and ensure the recruitment of the best researchers for the completion of the Preparatory Phase, during the operation of ELI and also to enlarge the user community.
Management of the whole project will be very dynamic, with frequent reporting since we will bear in mind the objective to deliver the ready-to-build design of ELI by the end of Preparatory Phase, with all the commitments necessary to start the construction of the facility.
