International audienceELECTRONS in a plasma undergo collective wave-like oscillations near the plasma frequency. These plasma waves can have a range of wavelengths and hence a range of phase velocities1. Of particular note are relativistic plasma waves2,3, for which the phase velocity approaches the speed of light; the longitudinal electric field associated with such waves can be extremely large, and can be used to accelerate electrons (either injected externally or supplied by the plasma) to high energies over very short distances2á¤-4. The maximum electric field, and hence maximum acceleration rate, that can be obtained in this way is determined by the maximum amplitude of oscillation that can be supported by the plasma5á¤-8. When this limit is reached, the plasma wave is said to ᤘbreakᤙ. Here we report observations of relativistic plasma waves driven to breaking point by the Raman forward-scattering instability9,10 induced by short, high-intensity laser pulses. The onset of wave-breaking is indicated by a sudden increase in both the number and maximum energy (up to 44 MeV) of accelerated plasma electrons, as well as by the loss of coherence of laser light scattered from the plasma wave
A method, which utilizes the large difference in ionization potentials between successive ionization states of trace atoms, for injecting electrons into a laser-driven wakefield is presented. Here a mixture of helium and trace amounts of nitrogen gas was used. Electrons from the K shell of nitrogen were tunnel ionized near the peak of the laser pulse and were injected into and trapped by the wake created by electrons from majority helium atoms and the L shell of nitrogen. The spectrum of the accelerated electrons, the threshold intensity at which trapping occurs, the forward transmitted laser spectrum, and the beam divergence are all consistent with this injection process. The experimental measurements are supported by theory and 3D OSIRIS simulations.
We show that monoenergetic ion beams can be accelerated by moderate Mach number collisionless, electrostatic shocks propagating in a long scale-length exponentially decaying plasma profile.Strong plasma heating and density steepening produced by an intense laser pulse near the critical density can launch such shocks that propagate in the extended plasma at high velocities. The generation of a monoenergetic ion beam is possible due to the small and constant sheath electric field associated with the slowly decreasing density profile. The conditions for the acceleration of high-quality, energetic ion beams are identified through theory and multidimensional particle-incell simulations. The scaling of the ion energy with laser intensity shows that it is possible to generate ∼ 200 MeV proton beams with state-of-the-art 100 TW class laser systems.
Laser wakefield acceleration of electrons holds great promise for producing ultracompact stages of GeV scale, high-quality electron beams for applications such as x-ray free electron lasers and high-energy colliders. Ultrahigh intensity laser pulses can be self-guided by relativistic plasma waves (the wake) over tens of vacuum diffraction lengths, to give >1 GeV energy in centimeter-scale low density plasmas using ionization-induced injection to inject charge into the wake even at low densities. By restricting electron injection to a distinct short region, the injector stage, energetic electron beams (of the order of 100 MeV) with a relatively large energy spread are generated. Some of these electrons are then further accelerated by a second, longer accelerator stage, which increases their energy to ∼0.5 GeV while reducing the relative energy spread to <5% FWHM.
Electrical breakdown sets a limit on the kinetic energy that particles in a conventional radio-frequency accelerator can reach. New accelerator concepts must be developed to achieve higher energies and to make future particle colliders more compact and affordable. The plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA) embodies one such concept, in which the electric field of a plasma wake excited by a bunch of charged particles (such as electrons) is used to accelerate a trailing bunch of particles. To apply plasma acceleration to electron-positron colliders, it is imperative that both the electrons and their antimatter counterpart, the positrons, are efficiently accelerated at high fields using plasmas. Although substantial progress has recently been reported on high-field, high-efficiency acceleration of electrons in a PWFA powered by an electron bunch, such an electron-driven wake is unsuitable for the acceleration and focusing of a positron bunch. Here we demonstrate a new regime of PWFAs where particles in the front of a single positron bunch transfer their energy to a substantial number of those in the rear of the same bunch by exciting a wakefield in the plasma. In the process, the accelerating field is altered--'self-loaded'--so that about a billion positrons gain five gigaelectronvolts of energy with a narrow energy spread over a distance of just 1.3 metres. They extract about 30 per cent of the wake's energy and form a spectrally distinct bunch with a root-mean-square energy spread as low as 1.8 per cent. This ability to transfer energy efficiently from the front to the rear within a single positron bunch makes the PWFA scheme very attractive as an energy booster to an electron-positron collider.
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