Trapping and Acceleration of Nonideal Injected Electron Bunches in Channel-Guided LWFAs

Journal Article · Tue Dec 07 04:00:00 EST 2004 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1842593· OSTI ID:20655254

Hubbard, R F; Gordon, D F; Jones, T G; Sprangle, P; Ting, A ^[1]; Cooley, J H ^[1]; Hafizi, B; Zigler, A ^[2]; Kaganovich, D ^[3]

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1. Plasma Physics Division, Naval Research Laboratory (United States)
2. Icarus Research, Inc., Bethesda, MD (United States)
3. LET Corp., Washington, DC (United States)

The standard regime for the laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) usually requires external injection of MeV electrons. Ideally, the injected electron bunch should be injected into the proper phase of the accelerating wake, have a bunch length that is small compared with the plasma wavelength, and a low emittance and energy spread. This paper reports Hamiltonian analysis and simulation studies of two 'nonideal' injection schemes that demonstrate strong phase bunching and good accelerated beam quality in a channel-guided laser wakefield accelerator. For the case of monoenergetic, unphased (long bunch) injection, there is an optimum range of injection energies for which the LWFA can trap a significant fraction of the injected pulse while producing an ultrashort, high-quality accelerated pulse. Phased and unphased injection in a channel-guided LWFA with a broad injected energy spread has also been simulated. Although the trapping fraction is generally much smaller than in the monoenergetic case, some simulations exhibit final accelerated bunches with remarkably small energy spread. These results suggest that relatively poor quality injection pulses may still be useful in LWFA demonstration experiments. Implications for planned LWFA experiments at NRL are discussed.

• OSTI ID: 20655254
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 737; ISSN 0094-243X; ISSN APCPCS
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ACCELERATION
ELECTRON BEAM INJECTION
ELECTRON BEAMS
HAMILTONIANS
LASERS
NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
PLASMA
PLASMA WAVES
PULSES
SIMULATION
TRAPPING
WAKEFIELD ACCELERATORS
WAVELENGTHS