Abstract
One obstacle in plasma accelerator development is the limitation of techniques to diagnose and measure plasma wakefield parameters. In this paper, we present a novel concept for the density measurement of a plasma wakefield using photon acceleration, supported by extensive particle in cell simulations of a laser pulse that copropagates with a wakefield. The technique can provide the perturbed electron density profile in the laser's reference frame, averaged over the propagation length, to be accurate within 10%. We discuss the limitations that affect the measurement: small frequency changes, photon trapping, laser displacement, stimulated Raman scattering, and laser beam divergence. By considering these processes, one can determine the optimal parameters of the laser pulse and its propagation length. This new technique allows a characterization of the density perturbation within a plasma wakefield accelerator.
Highlights
Plasma acceleration has been receiving interest recently since it can accelerate electrons up to GeV energy with a length much shorter than conventional accelerators [1,2,3,4]
We present a novel concept for the density measurement of a plasma wakefield using photon acceleration, supported by extensive particle in cell simulations of a laser pulse that copropagates with a wakefield
The measurement is done by sending a long laser probe pulse behind the short pump pulse which generates the wakefield
Summary
Plasma acceleration has been receiving interest recently since it can accelerate electrons up to GeV energy with a length much shorter than conventional accelerators [1,2,3,4]. To make a density profile, it needs many shots of short probe pulses at different positions Another technique which is a development of FDI is frequency domain holography (FDH) [12,13]. By providing a wider frequency span of the chirped pulse, this technique could give more accurate results than the previous one that uses one short and one long pulse [12,13] Another plasma imaging technique is the shadowgraph technique [16]. One possible technique to measure the density profile of plasma wakefields is to use photon acceleration first introduced by S. A long probe pulse copropagates with the plasma wave and the change in frequency of the pulse is measured. The measurement of the wakefield density profile using the photon acceleration technique is simulated.
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