The Prospect of Laser Accelerated Proton Pulses for Particle Tumor Therapy

Demanding applications like radiation therpy of cancer have pushed the development of ultra-comnpact laser plasma proton accelerators and defined novel levels of control, beam transport in pulsed fields and monitoring capabilities in experiments. In this presentation the status of the joint activities of the Dresden groups at HZDR running the high power laser Draco and at Oncoray, the national center for radiation research in oncology, will be discussed. Emphasis will be given to the energy scaling of proton bunches accelerated in the TNSA regime with and during ultra-short pulses, potential instabilities in the process, methods for online monitoring, and to the status of the ongoing upgrade of Draco to PW power level.