Search Menu
DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Search Scholarly Publications

Title: Strategies for mitigating the ionization-induced beam head erosion problem in an electron-beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator

Abstract

Strategies for mitigating ionization-induced beam head erosion in an electron-beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA) are explored when the plasma and the wake are both formed by the transverse electric field of the beam itself. Beam head erosion can occur in a preformed plasma because of a lack of focusing force from the wake at the rising edge (head) of the beam due to the finite inertia of the electrons. When the plasma is produced by field ionization from the space charge field of the beam, the head erosion is significantly exacerbated due to the gradual recession (in the beam frame) of the 100% ionization contour. Beam particles in front of the ionization front cannot be focused (guided) causing them to expand as in vacuum. When they expand, the location of the ionization front recedes such that even more beam particles are completely unguided. Eventually this process terminates the wake formation prematurely, i.e., well before the beam is depleted of its energy. Ionization-induced head erosion can be mitigated by controlling the beam parameters (emittance, charge, and energy) and/or the plasma conditions. In this paper we explore how the latter can be optimized so as to extend the beam propagation distance andmore » thereby increase the energy gain. In particular we show that, by using a combination of the alkali atoms of the lowest practical ionization potential (Cs) for plasma formation and a precursor laser pulse to generate a narrow plasma filament in front of the beam, the head erosion rate can be dramatically reduced. Simulation results show that in the upcoming “two-bunch PWFA experiments” on the FACET facility at SLAC national accelerator laboratory the energy gain of the trailing beam can be up to 10 times larger for the given parameters when employing these techniques. Comparison of the effect of beam head erosion in preformed and ionization produced plasmas is also presented.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [5]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
  2. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China); Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
  3. Univ. of Oslo (Norway); SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
  4. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
  5. Max Planck Inst. for Physics, Munich (Germany)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF); Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States); Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR). Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC)
OSTI Identifier:
1565220
Grant/Contract Number:  
FG02-92ER40727; SC0007970; SC0008316; SC0008491
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Physical Review Special Topics. Accelerators and Beams
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 16; Journal Issue: 10; Journal ID: ISSN 1098-4402
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS

Citation Formats

An, W., Zhou, M., Vafaei-Najafabadi, N., Marsh, K. A., Clayton, C. E., Joshi, C., Mori, W. B., Lu, W., Adli, E., Corde, S., Litos, M., Li, S., Gessner, S., Frederico, J., Hogan, M. J., Walz, D., England, J., Delahaye, J. P., and Muggli, P. Strategies for mitigating the ionization-induced beam head erosion problem in an electron-beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator. United States: N. p., 2013. Web. doi:10.1103/physrevstab.16.101301.
Copy to clipboard
An, W., Zhou, M., Vafaei-Najafabadi, N., Marsh, K. A., Clayton, C. E., Joshi, C., Mori, W. B., Lu, W., Adli, E., Corde, S., Litos, M., Li, S., Gessner, S., Frederico, J., Hogan, M. J., Walz, D., England, J., Delahaye, J. P., & Muggli, P. Strategies for mitigating the ionization-induced beam head erosion problem in an electron-beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevstab.16.101301
Copy to clipboard
An, W., Zhou, M., Vafaei-Najafabadi, N., Marsh, K. A., Clayton, C. E., Joshi, C., Mori, W. B., Lu, W., Adli, E., Corde, S., Litos, M., Li, S., Gessner, S., Frederico, J., Hogan, M. J., Walz, D., England, J., Delahaye, J. P., and Muggli, P. Wed . "Strategies for mitigating the ionization-induced beam head erosion problem in an electron-beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevstab.16.101301. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1565220.
Copy to clipboard
@article{osti_1565220,
title = {Strategies for mitigating the ionization-induced beam head erosion problem in an electron-beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator},
author = {An, W. and Zhou, M. and Vafaei-Najafabadi, N. and Marsh, K. A. and Clayton, C. E. and Joshi, C. and Mori, W. B. and Lu, W. and Adli, E. and Corde, S. and Litos, M. and Li, S. and Gessner, S. and Frederico, J. and Hogan, M. J. and Walz, D. and England, J. and Delahaye, J. P. and Muggli, P.},
abstractNote = {Strategies for mitigating ionization-induced beam head erosion in an electron-beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA) are explored when the plasma and the wake are both formed by the transverse electric field of the beam itself. Beam head erosion can occur in a preformed plasma because of a lack of focusing force from the wake at the rising edge (head) of the beam due to the finite inertia of the electrons. When the plasma is produced by field ionization from the space charge field of the beam, the head erosion is significantly exacerbated due to the gradual recession (in the beam frame) of the 100% ionization contour. Beam particles in front of the ionization front cannot be focused (guided) causing them to expand as in vacuum. When they expand, the location of the ionization front recedes such that even more beam particles are completely unguided. Eventually this process terminates the wake formation prematurely, i.e., well before the beam is depleted of its energy. Ionization-induced head erosion can be mitigated by controlling the beam parameters (emittance, charge, and energy) and/or the plasma conditions. In this paper we explore how the latter can be optimized so as to extend the beam propagation distance and thereby increase the energy gain. In particular we show that, by using a combination of the alkali atoms of the lowest practical ionization potential (Cs) for plasma formation and a precursor laser pulse to generate a narrow plasma filament in front of the beam, the head erosion rate can be dramatically reduced. Simulation results show that in the upcoming “two-bunch PWFA experiments” on the FACET facility at SLAC national accelerator laboratory the energy gain of the trailing beam can be up to 10 times larger for the given parameters when employing these techniques. Comparison of the effect of beam head erosion in preformed and ionization produced plasmas is also presented.},
doi = {10.1103/physrevstab.16.101301},
journal = {Physical Review Special Topics. Accelerators and Beams},
number = 10,
volume = 16,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Oct 09 00:00:00 EDT 2013},
month = {Wed Oct 09 00:00:00 EDT 2013}
}
Copy to clipboard
Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevstab.16.101301
Copyright Statement
Other availability
Search WorldCat Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 15 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Figures / Tables:

FIG. 1 FIG. 1: Snapshot of the plasma electron density from the wake exited by an electron beam in (a) a field-ionized lithium plasma (the plasma ions are shown in yellow and the area in white is filled by the neutral atoms that are not ionized) and (b) a preformed plasma. Themore » plots are a 2D cross section at the center of the 3D simulation box. The drive beam (shown as the red contour) is moving downwards.« less
All figures and tables (10 total)
Save / Share:
Export Metadata
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.

Works referenced in this record:

Nonlinear Theory for Relativistic Plasma Wakefields in the Blowout Regime
journal, April 2006

High energy density plasma science with an ultrarelativistic electron beam
journal, May 2002

  • Joshi, C.; Blue, B.; Clayton, C. E.
  • Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 9, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.1455003

Energy doubling of 42 GeV electrons in a metre-scale plasma wakefield accelerator
journal, February 2007

  • Blumenfeld, Ian; Clayton, Christopher E.; Decker, Franz-Josef
  • Nature, Vol. 445, Issue 7129
  • DOI: 10.1038/nature05538

Beam Loading in the Nonlinear Regime of Plasma-Based Acceleration
journal, September 2008

Particle-in-cell simulations of tunneling ionization effects in plasma-based accelerators
journal, May 2003

  • Bruhwiler, David L.; Dimitrov, D. A.; Cary, John R.
  • Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 10, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.1566027

QUICKPIC: A highly efficient particle-in-cell code for modeling wakefield acceleration in plasmas
journal, September 2006

Photo-ionized lithium source for plasma accelerator applications
journal, June 1999

  • Muggli, P.; Marsh, K. A.; Wang, S.
  • IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Vol. 27, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1109/27.774685

Plasma wakefield acceleration experiments at FACET
journal, May 2010

Acceleration and focusing of electrons in two-dimensional nonlinear plasma wake fields
journal, November 1991

Plasma production via field ionization
journal, October 2006

  • O’Connell, C. L.; Barnes, C. D.; Decker, F. -J.
  • Physical Review Special Topics - Accelerators and Beams, Vol. 9, Issue 10
  • DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevSTAB.9.101301

An improved iteration loop for the three dimensional quasi-static particle-in-cell algorithm: QuickPIC
journal, October 2013

    Sort by:
    [ × clear filter / sort ]

    Works referencing / citing this record:

    Wakefield-induced ionization injection in beam-driven plasma accelerators
    journal, September 2015

    • Martinez de la Ossa, A.; Mehrling, T. J.; Schaper, L.
    • Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 22, Issue 9
    • DOI: 10.1063/1.4929921

    Jitter mitigation in low density discharge plasma cells for wakefield accelerators
    journal, February 2019

    • Loisch, G.; Engel, J.; Gross, M.
    • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 125, Issue 6
    • DOI: 10.1063/1.5068753

    Longitudinal phase space dynamics of witness bunch during the Trojan Horse injection for plasma-based particle accelerators
    journal, July 2019

    • Moon, K.; Kumar, S.; Hur, M.
    • Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 26, Issue 7
    • DOI: 10.1063/1.5108928

    Plasma-based accelerators: then and now
    journal, August 2019

    Jitter Mitigation in Low Density Discharge Plasma Cells for Wakefield Accelerators
    text, January 2019

    • Loisch, Gregor; Engel, Johannes; Gross, Matthias
    • Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, DESY, Hamburg
    • DOI: 10.3204/pubdb-2019-00719
      Sort by:
      [ × clear filter / sort ]

      Figures / Tables found in this record:

      FIG. 1 (p. 5)figure
      FIG. 2 (p. 6)figure
      FIG. 3 (p. 7)figure
      FIG. 4 (p. 7)figure
      FIG. 5 (p. 7)figure
      FIG. 6 (p. 8)figure
      FIG. 7 (p. 8)figure
      FIG. 8 (p. 9)figure
      FIG. 9 (p. 9)figure
      FIG. 10 (p. 10)figure
        [ × clear filter / sort ]
        Figures/Tables have been extracted from DOE-funded journal article accepted manuscripts.

        Similar Records in DOE PAGES and OSTI.GOV collections: