The effect of plasma radius and profile on the development of self-modulation instability of electron bunches
- University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089 (United States)
- GoLP/Instituto de Plasmas e Fusão Nuclear Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Lisbon (Portugal)
- University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095 (United States)
Plasmas available for plasma wakefield accelerator experiments may have longitudinal and transverse density profiles that could affect the outcome of an experiment. This paper investigates the effect of plasmas with finite radius and inhomogeneous transverse density profiles on the wakefield excitation and the self-modulation instability (SMI) development in overdense plasmas. We focus here on the case of an electron bunch. Simulation results show that such plasmas generate larger focusing force for the propagating electron beam and therefore higher growth rate for the SMI. Although the initial accelerating field (E{sub z}) amplitude is lower in such plasmas, the increased focusing force can dominate the development trend of the SMI, i.e., larger saturated E{sub z} amplitude can be reached over similar plasma lengths.
- OSTI ID:
- 22253002
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 21, Issue 5; Other Information: (c) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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