UCLA, Los Angeles, California
Seeded FEL/IFEL techniques can be used for modulation of a relativistic electron beam longitudinally on the radiation wavelength. However, in the 1-10 THz range, which is of particular importance for matched injection of prebunched electrons into a laser-driven plasma accelerating structure, a suitable radiation source is not available. At the UCLA Neptune Laboratory we have built and fully characterized a radiation source tunable in the range of 1-3 THz. The THz pulse is produced by mixing two CO2 laser lines in a noncollinear phase-matched GaAs crystal at room temperature. The crystal is pumped by 200 ns pulses of a dual beam TEA CO2 laser running at 1 Hz. A grating placed in each lasing section allowed to cover the spectral range for the difference frequency from 0.5-4.5 THz with a step of 30-40 GHz. The achieved narrow bandwidth of ~10-5 and the output power of 2kW are sufficient for seeding a single-pass, waveguide FEL amplifier-prebuncher*. These pulses were used to measure the coupling efficiency and the attenuation for different types of THz waveguides and the results will be reported.
* C. Sung et al. "Seeded FEL/IFEL techniques for radiation amplification and electron microbunching in the terahertz range" Phys. Rev. STAB, 2006 (to be published)
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
USC, Los Angeles, California
The costs and the time scales of colliders intended to reach the energy frontier are such that it is important to explore new methods of accelerating particles to high energies. Plasma-based accelerators are particularly attractive because they are capable of producing accelerating fields that are orders of magnitude larger than those used in conventional colliders. In these accelerators a drive beam, either laser or particle, produces a plasma wave (wakefield) that accelerates charged particles. The ultimate utility of plasma accelerators will depend on sustaining ultra-high accelerating fields over a substantial length to achieve a significant energy gain. More than 42 GeV energy gain was achieved in an 85 cm long plasma wakefield accelerator driven by a 42 GeV electron drive beam at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). Most of the beam electrons lose energy to the plasma wave, but some electrons in the back of the same beam pulse are accelerated with a field of ~52 GV/m. This effectively doubles their energy, producing the energy gain of the 3 km long SLAC accelerator in less than a metre for a small fraction of the electrons in the injected bunch.
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisbon
In a laser wakefield accelerator experiment where the length of the pump laser pulse is several plasma period long, the leading edge of the laser pulse undergoes frequency downshifting as the laser energy is transferred to the wake. Therefore, after some propagation distance, the group velocity of the leading edge of of the pump pulse–and therefore of the driven electron plasma wave–will slow down. This can have implications for the dephasing length of the accelerated electrons and therefore needs to be understood experimentally. We have carried out an experimental investigation where we have measured the velocity vf of the 'wave-front' of the plasma wave driven by a nominally 50fs (FWHM), intense (a0~1), 0.8 micron laser pulse. To determine the speed of the wave front, time- and space-resolved shadowgraphy, interferometry, and Thomson scattering were used. Although low density data (ne ~ 1018 cm-3) showed no significant changes in vf over 1.5mm (and no accelerated electrons), high-density data shows accelerated electrons and an approximately 5% drop in vf after a propagation distance of about 800 microns.
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisbon
The extraordinary ability of space-charge waves in plasmas to accelerate charged particles at gradients that are orders of magnitude greater than that in current accelerators has been well documented. We develop a phenomenological framework for Laser Wakefield Acceleration (LWFA) in the 3D nonlinear regime, in which the plasma electrons are expelled by the radiation pressure of a short pulse laser, leading to nearly complete blowout. This theory provides a recipe for designing a LWFA for given laser and plasma parameters and estimates the number and the energy of the accelerated electrons whether self-injected or externally injected. These formulas apply for self-guided as well as externally guided pulses (e.g. by plasma channels). Based on this theory, we will present scenarios on how to build a single stage accelerator with output energies from GeV to TeV. Particle-In-Cell (PIC) simulations are used to verify our theory. This work was supported by DOE and NSF under grant Nos. DE-FG03-92ER40727, DE-FC02-01ER41179, DE-FG02-03ER54721, and NSF-Phy-0321345.
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
High-intensity short-pulse laser guiding in plasma channels has extended the length over which acceleration occurs in laser wake field accelerators*. Recent multidimensional nonlinear plasma wave theory predicts a range of optimal characteristics for self-guiding of laser pulses in the blowout regime for pulses shorter than a plasma wavelength**. This theory predicts a robust, stable parameter space for self-guiding and wake production and has been verified through multidimensional particle-in-cell simulations. We experimentally explore the plasma dynamics and laser pulse propagation using a 50 fs multi-terawatt Ti:Sapphire laser in a helium plasma at plasma densities, laser powers, and spot sizes within this parameter space. Our parameters are in the range where the plasma is underdense and the laser power is much greater than the critical power for self focusing. The evolution of the laser pulse and plasma channel will be followed over several Rayleigh lengths.
* C. Geddes et. al., Nature (London) 431, 538 (2004)** W. Lu et. al., Phys. Plasmas 13, 056709 (2006)
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
USC, Los Angeles, California
In the recent plasma wakefield accelerator experiments at SLAC, the energy of the particles in the tail of the 42 GeV electron beam were doubled in less than one meter [1]. Simulations suggest that the acceleration length was limited by a new phenomenon – beam head erosion in self-ionized plasmas. In vacuum, a particle beam expands transversely in a distance given by beta*. In the blowout regime of a plasma wakefield [2], the majority of the beam is focused by the ion channel, while the beam head slowly spreads since it takes a finite time for the ion channel to form. It is observed that in self-ionized plasmas, the head spreading is exacerbated compared to that in pre-ionized plasmas, causing the ionization front to move backward (erode). A simple theoretical model is used to estimate the upper limit of the erosion rate for a bi-gaussian beam by assuming free expansion of the beam head before the ionization front. Comparison with simulations suggests that half this maximum value can serve as an estimate for the erosion rate. Critical parameters to the erosion rate are discussed.
[1] I. Blumenfeld et al., Nature 445, 741(2007)[2] J. B. Rosenzweig et al., Phys. Rev. A 44, R6189 (1991)
USC, Los Angeles, California
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
Systematic measurements of energy gain as a function of plasma parameters in the SLAC electron beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) experiments lead to very important understanding of the beam-plasma interaction. In particular, measurements as a function of the plasma length Lp show that the energy gain increases linearly with Lp in the 10 to 30 cm range. Based on this scaling, the plasma was subsequently lengthened to Lp=90cm, resulting in the first demonstration of the doubling of the energy of a fraction of the incoming 42GeV electrons*. The peak accelerating gradient is larger than 40GV/m and is sustained over meter-scale plasma lengths. These measurements also reveal that the optimum plasma density for acceleration is about 2.7·1017/cc, larger than the value predicted by the linear theory for the approximately 20 microns bunch length, confirming that the experiment is conducted in the non-linear regime of the PWFA. Detailed experimental results will be presented.
* "Energy doubling of 42 GeV electrons in a meter scale plasma wakefield accelerator", I. Blumenfeld et. al., Nature, 2006, accepted
USC, Los Angeles, California
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
A new approach for positron acceleration in non-linear plasma wakefields driven by electron beams is presented. Positrons can be produced by colliding an electron beam with a thin foil target embedded in the plasma. Integration of positron production and acceleration in one stage is realized by a single relativistic, intense electron beam. Simulations with the parameters of the proposed SABER facility at SLAC suggest that this concept could be tested there.
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
USC, Los Angeles, California
Recent experiments at SLAC have shown that high gradient acceleration of electrons is achievable in meter scale plasmas. Results from these experiments show that the wakefield is sensitive to parameters in the electron beam which drives it. In the experiment the bunch length and beam waist location were varied systematically at constant charge. Here we investigate the correlation of peak beam current to the decelerating gradient. Limits on the transformer ratio will also be discussed. The results are compared to simulation.
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
USC, Los Angeles, California
Particles are leaving the meter-long plasma wakefield accelerator with a large energy spread. To determine the spectrum of these particles, four diagnostics have been set up. These were used to determine energies of the particles that gain energy in the plasma, those that lose energy by driving the wake and the self-injected particles that are accelerated from rest.
SLAC, Menlo Park, California
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
USC, Los Angeles, California
Recent electron beam driven plasma wakefield accelerator experiments carried out at SLAC showed trapping of plasma electrons. These trapped electrons appeared on an energy spectrometer with smaller transverse size than the beam driving the wake. A connection is made between transverse size and emittance; due to the spectrometer?s resolution, this connection allows for placing an upper limit on the trapped electron emittance. The upper limit for the lowest normalized emittance measured in the experiment is 1 mm·mrad.