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Register a new userTunable Electron Multibunch Production in Plasma Wakefield Accelerators
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Synchronized, independently tunable and focused $mu$J-class laser pulses are used to release multiple electron populations via photo-ionization inside an electron-beam driven plasma wave. By varying the laser foci in the laboratory frame and the position of the underdense photocathodes in the co-moving frame, the delays between the produced bunches and their energies are adjusted. The resulting multibunches have ultra-high quality and brightness, allowing for hitherto impossible bunch configurations such as spatially overlapping bunch populations with strictly separated energies, which opens up a new regime for light sources such as free-electron-lasers.
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Injection of well-defined, high-quality electron populations into plasma waves is a key challenge of plasma wakefield accelerators. Here, we report on the first experimental demonstration of plasma density downramp injection in an electron-driven plasma wakefield accelerator, which can be controlled and tuned in all-optical fashion by mJ-level laser pulses. The laser pulse is directed across the path of the plasma wave before its arrival, where it generates a local plasma density spike in addition to the background plasma by tunnelling ionization of a high ionization threshold gas component. This density spike distorts the plasma wave during the density downramp, causing plasma electrons to be injected into the plasma wave. By tuning the laser pulse energy and shape, highly flexible plasma density spike profiles can be designed, enabling dark current free, versatile production of high-quality electron beams. This in turn permits creation of unique injected beam configurations such as counter-oscillating twin beamlets.
Drive particle beams in linear or weakly nonlinear regimes of the plasma wakefield accelerator quickly reach a radial equilibrium with the wakefield, which is described in detail for the first time. The equilibrium beam state and self-consistent wakefields are obtained by combining analytical relationships, numerical integration, and first-principle simulations. In the equilibrium state, the beam density is strongly peaked near the axis, the beam radius is constant along the beam, and longitudinal variation of the focusing strength is balanced by varying beam emittance. The transverse momentum distribution of beam particles depends on the observation radius and is neither separable, nor Gaussian.
The effect of laser focusing conditions on the evolution of relativistic plasma waves in laser wakefield accelerators is studied both experimentally and with particle-in-cell simulations. For short focal length ($w_0 < lambda_p$) interactions, beam break-up prevents stable propagation of the pulse. High field gradients lead to non-localized phase injection of electrons, and thus broad energy spread beams. However for long focal length geometries ($w_0 > lambda_p$), a single optical filament can capture the majority of the laser energy, and self-guide over distances comparable to the dephasing length, even for these short-pulses ($ctau approx lambda_p$). This allows the wakefield to evolve to the correct shape for the production of the monoenergetic electron bunches, as measured in the experiment.
In a laser plasma accelerator (LPA), a short and intense laser pulse propagating in a plasma drives a wakefield (a plasma wave with a relativistic phase velocity) that can sustain extremely large electric fields, enabling compact accelerating structures. Potential LPA applications include compact radiation sources and high energy linear colliders. We propose and study plasma wave excitation by an incoherent combination of a large number of low energy laser pulses (i.e., without constraining the pulse phases). We show that, in spite of the incoherent nature of electromagnetic fields within the volume occupied by the pulses, the excited wakefield is regular and its amplitude is comparable or equal to that obtained using a single, coherent pulse with the same energy. These results provide a path to the next generation of LPA-based applications, where incoherently combined multiple pulses may enable high repetition rate, high average power LPAs.
The dynamic process of a laser or particle beam propagating from vacuum into underdense plasma has been investigated theoretically. Our theoretical model combines a Lagrangian fluid model with the classic quasistatic wakefield theory. It is found that background electrons can be injected into wakefields because sharp vacuum-plasma transitions can reduce the injection threshold. The injection condition, injection threshold as well as the injection length can be given theoretically by our model and are compared with results from computer simulations. Moreover, electron beams of high qualities can be produced near the injection thresholds and the proposed scheme is promising in reducing the injection threshold and improving the beam qualities of plasma based accelerators.
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