Conveners
PS8: Plasma sources and related diagnostics
- Lucio Crincoli (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)
- Malte Kaluza (University of Jena, Helmholtz-Institute Jena)
PS8: Plasma sources and related diagnostics
- Lucio Crincoli (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare)
- Malte Kaluza (University of Jena, Helmholtz-Institute Jena)
Scalable plasma sources R&D for the AWAKE experiment at CERN focuses on two technologies as alternatives to the existing laser-ionised rubidium vapor plasma source: the Helicon Plasma Source (HPS) and the Discharge Plasma Source (DPS). The very stringent requirements of axial plasma electron density uniformity (n/n < 0.25%) and reproducibility are tackled thanks to a collaborative effort...
The AWAKE experiment is now in its Run 2b phase. The main aim is to study the effect of a density step placed along the plasma to control the evolution of wakefields induced by a long proton bunch. Numerical simulation results predicted that, after saturation of the self-modulation process, wakefields maintain a larger amplitude with the step than in a uniform density plasma. A new rubidium...
In the field of particle accelerators, recent results obtained through the interaction between particle beams and plasmas in cm-scale short structures have demonstrated the capability to achieve high accelerating and focusing gradients while preserving electron beam quality. In this context, the EuPRAXIA project represents the worldwide first high energy plasma-based accelerator that can...
The ALiVE concept for a Higgs factory using single stage proton driven plasma acceleration of lepton bunches requires a plasma with electron density matching the driver bunch size and length matching the driver depletion length. This results in a plasma with an electron density of up to 10^15 cm^-3 and a length of hundreds of meters. An energy and cost efficient way to create long plasmas use...
In view of future applications of plasma-based particle accelerators, within the fields of high-energy physics and new light sources, the capability of plasma sources to operate at high repetition rates is crucial. In particular for gas-filled plasma discharge capillaries, which allow direct control over plasma properties, a key aspect is the longevity of the material, subject to erosion due...
Curved plasma waveguides have been proposed as a means to: guide fresh laser pulses into multistage plasma accelerators [1, 2], replace plasma mirror tapes used to eject depleted laser pulses [3], and to bend electron bunches for radiation generation [4-6]. However, all curved channel experiments so far have employed discharge capillaries, which are prone to laser damage especially at high...
Extended depth of focus optics or axioptics are becoming increasingly important for many areas of high-power laser-matter interactions. Rather than focusing light to a single longitudinal point, like a parabolic mirror, these optics focus light to a line segment along the optical axis, allowing for the generation of extended regions of high laser intensity. Optics for generating such...
Plasma-wakefield acceleration holds great promise for photon science and particle physics due to its extremely high accelerating gradients. However, plasma accelerators must also be capable of operating at very high repetition rates—orders of magnitude beyond the state of the art—to meet the brilliance and luminosity demands of users. Recent results from FLASHForward demonstrated that...
Plasma-based accelerators have the potential to reduce the size, cost, and carbon footprint for a wide variety of applications, including light sources and linear colliders, due to the ultra-high electric-field strengths that can be sustained in the accelerating structure. However, the nonlinear processes typically involved with this mechanism place stringent demands on the plasma’s...
To reach large accelerating gradients, an important requirement for a plasma wakefield accelerator is to produce a uniform plasma density. The creation and characterization of the density can be challenging. Demeter et al. showed that the schlieren imaging technique is well suited to determine the geometrical properties of the AWAKE, 10m-long plasma column of Rubidium vapor. We describe an...
The thin, underdense, passive plasma lens comprises a sub-millimeter scale, laser-ionized plasma in the outflow of a supersonic gas jet. It promises compact, strong, tunable, axisymmetric focusing of intense electron beams and is ideally suited for matching beams into and out of plasma wakefield accelerator stages. It can also be used for reducing divergence of high-brightness plasma-injected...
In LWFA, the driving laser generates a high-amplitude plasma wave producing the electric field structure, which can trap and accelerate electron pulses. For a detailed investigation of the formation and evolution of the wave and the acceleration process we use a synchronized, ultra-short (few-cycle), ultra-broadband laser pulse, which probes the interaction region. In transverse geometry,...
The discovery of laser wakefield acceleration in gaseous plasma was a major milestone that could lead to a significant reduction of size and cost of large electron accelerators. For higher-energy laser-driven electron acceleration guiding plasma channels were proposed, which are
matched to the laser pulse parameters. A parabolic density profile is
needed for guiding a Gaussian beam, which is...
