Plasma-based positron sources are attracting significant attention from the research community, thanks to rather unique characteristics, which include broad energy tuneability and ultra-short duration, obtainable in a compact and relatively inexpensive setup. Here, we show a detailed numerical study of the positron beam characteristics obtainable at the dedicated user target areas proposed for the EuPRAXIA facility, the first plasma-based particle accelerator to be built as a user facility for applications. It will be shown that MeV-scale positron beams with unique properties for industrial and material science applications can be produced, alongside with GeV-scale positron beams suitable for fundamental science and accelerator physics.
Laser-wakefield accelerated electron beams have been demonstrated to be a viable alternative to those produced by radio-frequency systems, with unique characteristics including intrinsic femtosecond-scale duration and micron-scale source size. In addition, they present the practical advantage of a generally compact and cost-effective setup inherently synchronsed with a high-power laser. The rapid progress experienced by these accelerators is now posing the question as to whether they could be included in the design of the next generation of electron-positron colliders. However, the asymmetry of the accelerating wake-fields presents challenging complications on positron acceleration. Despite considerable numerical work on positron wakefield acceleration, this area of research has thus far experienced limited experimental progress due to the lack of positron beams suitable to seed a plasma accelerator. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that moderate power lasers ($\approx$ 100 TW peak power) can generate ultra-relativistic positron beams with sufficient spectral and spatial quality to be injected in a plasma accelerator. Our results indicate, in agreement with numerical simulations, selection and transport of positron beamlets with a 5\% bandwidth around 600 MeV, with femtosecond-scale duration and micron-scale normalised emittance. It is proposed that beams with these characteristics are readily suited for experimental studies of positron acceleration in a plasma wakefield.
We numerically show that laser-wakefield accelerated electron beams obtained using a PetaWatt-scale laser system can produce high-flux sources of relativistic muons that are suitable for radiographic applications. Scalings of muon energy and flux with the properties of the wakefield electron beams are presented. Applying these results to the expected performance of the 10-PW class laser at the Extreme Light Infrastructure Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) demonstrates that ultra-high power laser facilities currently in the commissioning phase can generate ultra-relativistic muon beams with more than 104 muons per shot reaching the detector plane. Simple magnetic beamlines are shown to be effective in separating the muons from noise, allowing for their detection using, for example, silicon-based detectors. It is shown that a laser facility like the one at ELI-NP can produce high-fidelity and spatially resolved muon radiographs of enclosed strategically sensitive materials in a matter of minutes.
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