On the future of BNL user facilities

The purpose of this document is to portray the emerging technology of high-power high-brightness electron beams. This new technology will impact several fields of science and it is essential that BNL stay abreast of the development. BNL has a relative advantage and vital interest in pursuing this technology that will impact its two major facilities, the NSLS and RHIC. We have a sensible development path towards this critical future technology, in which BNL will gradually acquire a strong basis of Superconducting Radio Frequency (SRF) technology while executing useful projects. The technology of high-power AND high-brightness (HPHB) electron beams is based of the convergence of two extant, but relatively recent technologies: Photoinjectors and superconducting energy-recovering linacs. The HPHB technology presents special opportunities for the development of future BNL user facilities for High-Energy and Nuclear Science (HE-NP) and Basic Energy Science (BES). In HE-NP this technology makes it possible to build high-energy electron cooling for RHIC in the short range and a unique linac-based electron-ion collider (eRHIC). In BES, we can build short pulse, coherent FIR sources and high flux femtosecond hard x-ray sources based on Compton scattering in the short range and, in the longer range, femtosecond, ultra-high brightness synchrotron light sources and, ultimately, an X-ray Free-Electron Laser (FEL).