No Arabic abstract
Hollow channel plasma wakefield acceleration is a proposed method to provide high acceleration gradients for electrons and positrons alike: a key to future lepton colliders. However, beams which are misaligned from the channel axis induce strong transverse wakefields, deflecting beams and reducing the collider luminosity. This undesirable consequence sets a tight constraint on the alignment accuracy of the beam propagating through the channel. Direct measurements of beam misalignment-induced transverse wakefields are therefore essential for designing mitigation strategies. We present the first quantitative measurements of transverse wakefields in a hollow plasma channel, induced by an off-axis 20 GeV positron bunch, and measured with another 20 GeV lower charge trailing positron probe bunch. The measurements are largely consistent with theory.
The paper presents the results of numerical PIC-simulation of positron bunch focusing when acceleration in a plasma dielectric wakefield accelerator. The wakefield was excited by drive electron bunch in quartz dielectric tube, embedded in cylindrical metal waveguide. The internal area of dielectric tube has been filled with radially homogeneous plasma having in general case the vacuum channel along waveguide axis. Results of numerical PIC simulation have shown that it is possible a simultaneous acceleration and focusing of test positron bunch in the wakefield. The dependence of transport and acceleration of positron bunch on size of vacuum channel and waveguide length is studied.
Wakefield particle acceleration in hollow plasma channels is under extensive study nowadays. Here we consider an externally magnetized plasma layer (external magnetic field of arbitrary magnitude is along the structure axis) and investigate wakefields generated by a point charge passing along the layer axis.
Plasma-based electron and positron wakefield acceleration has made great strides in the past decade. However one major challenge for its applications to coherent light sources and colliders is the relatively large energy spread of the accelerated beams, currently at a few percent level. This energy spread is usually correlated with particle position in the beam arising from the longitudinal chirp of the wakefield amplitude. Therefore a dechirper is highly desirable for reducing this spread down to $sim0.1%$ level, while at the same time for maintaining the emittance of the accelerated beam. Here we propose that a low-density hollow channel plasma can act as a near-ideal dechirper for both electrons and positrons. We demonstrate the concept through large-scale three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We show that the initial positive correlated energy spread (chirp) on the beam exiting a plasma accelerator can be compensated by the nearly linear self-wake induced by the beam in the hollow channel from few percent level down to $leq 0.1%$. Meanwhile, the beam emittance can be preserved due to the negligible transverse field inside the channel. This passive method may significantly improve the beam quality of plasma-based accelerators, paving the way for their applications to future compact free electron lasers and colliders.
A linear theory of a wakefield excitation in a plasma-dielectric accelerating structure by a drive electron bunch in the case of an off-axis bunch injection has been constructed. The structure under investigation is a round dielectric-loaded metal waveguide with a channel for the charged particles, filled with homogeneous cold plasma. Derived theory was used to investigate numerically the spatial distribution of the bunch-excited wakefield components, which act on both the drive and witness bunches.
Relativistic wakes produced by intense laser or particle beams propagating through plasmas are being considered as accelerators for next generation of colliders and coherent light sources. Such wakes have been shown to accelerate electrons and positrons to several gigaelectronvolts (GeV), with a few percent energy spread and a high wake-to-beam energy transfer efficiency. However, complete mapping of electric field structure of the wakes has proven elusive. Here we show that a high-energy electron bunch can be used to probe the fields of such light-speed wakes with femtosecond resolution. The highly transient, microscopic wakefield is reconstructed from the density modulated ultra-short probe bunch after it has traversed the wake. This technique enables visualization of linear wakefields in low-density plasmas that can accelerate electrons and positrons beams. It also allows characterization of wakes in plasma density ramps critical for maintaining the beam emittance, improving the energy transfer efficiency and producing high brightness beams from plasma accelerators.