Abstract: Laser-driven acceleration of electron and proton bunches have been experiencing a steady improvement over the past decade, in terms of bunch quality as well as stability and reproducibility. This makes it possible to envision real applications of small-scale (nearly “table-top”) laser-driven accelerators (LDA) in a variety of fields, and in particular in medicine. The possibility of employing LDAs for novel radiotherapy protocols is now emerging, and particular attention is currently deserved to the possibility of delivering ionizing radiation at very high dose rates, thus taking advantage of the recently (re)discovered “FLASH effect”. The results of recent acceleration campaigns, carried out at the ILIL (CNR INO Pisa) lab and devoted to explore acceleration regimes suitable for applications in radiotherapy, will be shown. A large part of the seminar will be devoted to report on recent experiments carried out in the framework of the INFN experiment LPA2, aimed in particular at investigating the radiobiology underpinning the FLASH effect.
