No Arabic abstract
The `Laser-hybrid Accelerator for Radiobiological Applications, LhARA, is conceived as a novel, uniquely-flexible facility dedicated to the study of radiobiology. The technologies demonstrated in LhARA, which have wide application, will be developed to allow particle-beam therapy to be delivered in a completely new regime, combining a variety of ion species in a single treatment fraction and exploiting ultra-high dose rates. LhARA will be a hybrid accelerator system in which laser interactions drive the creation of a large flux of protons or light ions that are captured using a plasma (Gabor) lens and formed into a beam. The laser-driven source allows protons and ions to be captured at energies significantly above those that pertain in conventional facilities, thus evading the current space-charge limit on the instantaneous dose rate that can be delivered. The laser-hybrid approach, therefore, will allow the vast ``terra incognita of the radiobiology that determines the response of tissue to ionising radiation to be studied with protons and light ions using a wide variety of time structures, spectral distributions, and spatial configurations at instantaneous dose rates up to and significantly beyond the ultra-high dose-rate `FLASH regime. It is proposed that LhARA be developed in two stages. In the first stage, a programme of in vitro radiobiology will be served with proton beams with energies between 10MeV and 15MeV. In stage two, the beam will be accelerated using a fixed-field accelerator (FFA). This will allow experiments to be carried out in vitro and in vivo with proton beam energies of up to 127MeV. In addition, ion beams with energies up to 33.4MeV per nucleon will be available for in vitro and in vivo experiments. This paper presents the conceptual design for LhARA and the R&D programme by which the LhARA consortium seeks to establish the facility.
The FLASHForward experimental facility is a high-performance test-bed for precision plasma-wakefield research, aiming to accelerate high-quality electron beams to GeV-levels in a few centimetres of ionised gas. The plasma is created by ionising gas in a gas cell either by a high-voltage discharge or a high-intensity laser pulse. The electrons to be accelerated will either be injected internally from the plasma background or externally from the FLASH superconducting RF front end. In both cases the wakefield will be driven by electron beams provided by the FLASH gun and linac modules operating with a 10 Hz macro-pulse structure, generating 1.25 GeV, 1 nC electron bunches at up to 3 MHz micro-pulse repetition rates. At full capacity, this FLASH bunch-train structure corresponds to 30 kW of average power, orders of magnitude higher than drivers available to other state-of-the-art LWFA and PWFA experiments. This high-power functionality means FLASHForward is the only plasma-wakefield facility in the world with the immediate capability to develop, explore, and benchmark high-average-power plasma-wakefield research essential for next-generation facilities. The operational parameters and technical highlights of the experiment are discussed, as well as the scientific goals and high-average-power outlook.
We present methods and preliminary observations of two pulse Direct Laser Acceleration in a Laser-Driven Plasma Accelerator. This acceleration mechanism uses a second co-propagating laser pulse to overlap and further accelerate electrons in a wakefield bubble, increasing energy at the cost of emittance when compared to traditional laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA). To this end, we introduce a method of femtosecond scale control of time delay between two co-propagating pulses. We show energy enhancement when the separation between the two pulses approaches the bubble radius.
Laser plasma acceleration at kilohertz repetition rate has recently been shown to work in two different regimes, with pulse lengths of either 30 fs or 3.5 fs. We now report on a systematic study in which a large range of pulse durations and plasma densities were investigated through continuous tuning of the laser spectral bandwidth. Indeed, two LPA processes can be distinguished, where beams of the highest quality, with 5.4 pC charge and a spectrum peaked at 2-2.5 MeV are obtained with short pulses propagating in moderate plasma densities. Through Particle-in-Cell simulations the two different acceleration processes are thoroughly explained. Finally, we proceed to show the results of a 5-hour continuous and stable run of our LPA accelerator accumulating more than $mathrm{18times10^6}$ consecutive shots, with 2.6 pC charge and peaked 2.5 MeV spectrum. A parametric study of the influence of the laser driver energy through PIC simulations underlines that this unprecedented stability was obtained thanks to micro-scale density gradient injection. Together, these results represent an important step towards stable laser-plasma accelerated electron beams at kilohertz repetition rate.
The construction of a novel user facility employing laser-driven plasma acceleration with superior beam quality will require an industrial grade, high repetition rate petawatt laser driver which is beyond existing technology. However, with the ongoing fast development of chirped pulse amplification and high average power laser technology, options can be identified depending on the envisioned laser-plasma acceleration scheme and on the time scale for construction. Here we discuss laser requirements for the EuPRAXIA infrastructure design and identify a suitable laser concepts that is likely to fulfil such requirements with a moderate development of existing technologies.
A laser pulse guided in a curved plasma channel can excite wakefields that steer electrons along an arched trajectory. As the electrons are accelerated along the curved channel, they emit synchrotron radiation. We present simple analytical models and simulations examining laser pulse guiding, wakefield generation, electron steering, and synchrotron emission in curved plasma channels. For experimentally realizable parameters, a ~2 GeV electron emits 0.1 photons per cm with an average photon energy of multiple keV.