Plasma Wakefield Acceleration Experiment Research Articles

Characterization of plasma-discharge Capillaries for Plasma-based Particle Acceleration

Novel particle accelerators based on plasma technology allow a drastic reduction in size, due to the high accelerating field established inside plasmas, which are created and confined by specific devices. Plasma Wakefield Acceleration experiments are performed at the SPARC_LAB test facility (Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati - INFN) by using gas-filled capillaries, in which the plasma formation is achieved by ionizing hydrogen gas through high voltage pulses. In this work, the characterization of gas-filled plasma-discharge capillaries is presented. Several geometrical configurations are tested, including capillaries with different channel shapes and arrangement of inlets positions for the gas injection. Such configurations are designed in order to enhance the uniformity of the plasma density distribution along the plasma channel, which is necessary to improve particle beam acceleration. Plasma sources are characterized by means of the spectroscopic technique based on the Stark broadening method, which allows to measure the evolution of the plasma density profile along the channel. In addition, the CFD software OpenFoam is used to simulate the dynamics of the neutral gas during the filling of the capillary.

EARLI: design of a laser wakefield accelerator for AWAKE

Following the successful Run 1 experiment, the Advanced Proton Driven Plasma Wakefield Acceleration Experiment (AWAKE) Run2 experiment requires the design and implementation of a compact electron source. The “high-quality Electron Accelerator driven by a Reliable Laser wakefield for Industrial uses” (EARLI) project aims to design a stand-alone high-quality electron injector based on a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) as an alternative proposal to AWAKE’s baseline design of an X-band electron gun. This project is currently in the design phase, including simulations and experimental tests. Exhaustive beam physics studies for conventional accelerators are applied to LWFA physics.

A method for obtaining 3D charge density distribution of a self-modulated proton bunch

The Advanced Wakefield Experiment (AWAKE) at CERN is the first plasma wakefield accelerator experiment to use a proton bunch as driver. The long bunch undergoes seeded self-modulation (SSM) in a 10 m-long plasma. SSM transforms the bunch into a train of short micro-bunches that resonantly drive high-amplitude wakefields. We use optical transition radiation (OTR) and a streak camera to obtain time-resolved images of the bunch transverse charge density distribution in a given plane. In this paper we present a method to obtain 3D images of the bunch by scanning the OTR across the entrance slit of the streak camera. Reconstruction of the 3D distribution is possible because with seeding self-modulation is reproducible. The 3D images allow for checking the axi-symmetry of SSM and for detecting the possible presence of the non-axi-symmetric hosing instability (HI).

Start-to-end simulations of plasma-wakefield acceleration using the MAX IV Linear Accelerator

Plasma-wakefield acceleration (PWFA) relies on the interaction between intense particle bunches and plasma for reaching higher accelerating gradients than what is possible with conventional radio-frequency technology. Using ultra-relativistic beam drivers allows for long acceleration lengths and have potential applications such as energy booster stages for synchrotron light sources or linear colliders and generating ultra-high-brightness beams from the background plasma. In this article, we present start-to-end simulations of the MAX IV Linear Accelerator as part of our investigations into the feasibility of using the linac for a PWFA experiment. We find that PWFA appears to be a viable application for the linac. A part of this conclusion is based on our finding that the general properties of the bunch compressor type employed in the MAX IV linac are well-suited for efficient generation of PWFA-optimized bunch current profiles, both for single- and double-bunch beams.

First emittance measurement of the beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerated electron beam

Next-generation plasma-based accelerators can push electron beams to GeV energies within centimetre distances. The plasma, excited by a driver pulse, is indeed able to sustain huge electric fields that can efficiently accelerate a trailing witness bunch, which was experimentally demonstrated on multiple occasions. Thus, the main focus of the current research is being shifted towards achieving a high quality of the beam after the plasma acceleration. In this letter we present beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration experiment, where initially preformed high-quality witness beam was accelerated inside the plasma and characterized. In this experiment the witness beam quality after the acceleration was maintained on high level, with $0.2\%$ final energy spread and $3.8~\mu m$ resulting normalized transverse emittance after the acceleration. In this article, for the first time to our knowledge, the emittance of the PWFA beam was directly measured.

Electro-optic sampling beam position monitor for relativistic electron beams

An electro-optic sampling beam position monitor for installation at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory FACET-II facility is described. Simulations of the detector signal were performed using realistic electron beam current profiles, demonstrating that this single-shot, non-destructive, compact detector is capable of resolving the relative transverse offset and longitudinal separation of an ultra-relativistic, two-bunch electron beam to order 1 μm and 10 fs, respectively. A design study was performed to optimize the detector’s response to the ultra-relativistic two-bunch electron beam utilized in plasma wakefield accelerator experiments. In addition, the expected sensitivity to beam tilt is studied for typical electron beams used in free electron lasers.

Online multi-objective particle accelerator optimization of the AWAKE electron beam line for simultaneous emittance and orbit control

Multi-objective optimization is important for particle accelerators where various competing objectives must be satisfied routinely such as, for example, transverse emittance vs bunch length. We develop and demonstrate an online multi-time scale multi-objective optimization algorithm that performs real time feedback on particle accelerators. We demonstrate the ability to simultaneously minimize the emittance and maintain a reference trajectory of a beam in the electron beamline in CERN’s Advanced Proton Driven Plasma Wakefield Acceleration Experiment.

Plasma lens-based beam extraction and removal system for plasma wakefield acceleration experiments

Plasma Wakefield Acceleration represents one of the most promising techniques able to overcome the limits of conventional RF technology and make possible the development of compact accelerators. With respect to the laser-driven schemes, the beam-driven scenario is not limited by diffraction and dephasing issues, thus it allows to achieve larger acceleration lengths. One of the most prominent drawback, conversely, occurs at the end of the acceleration process and consists of removing the depleted high-charge driver while preserving the main features (emittance and peak current) of the accelerated witness bunch. Here we present a theoretical study demonstrating the possibility to reach these goals by using an innovative system consisting of an array of beam collimators and discharge-capillaries operating as active-plasma lenses. Such a system allows to extract and transport the accelerated and highly divergent witness bunch and, at the same time, provides for the removal of the driver. The study is completed by a set of numerical simulations conducted for different beam configurations. The physics of the interaction of particles with collimator is also investigated.

Commissioning of the electron injector for the AWAKE experiment

The advanced wakefield experiment (AWAKE) at CERN is the first proton beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration experiment. The main goal of AWAKE RUN 1 was to demonstrate seeded self-modulation (SSM) of the proton beam and electron witness beam acceleration in the plasma wakefield. For the AWAKE experiment, a 10-meter-long Rubidium-vapor cell together with a high-power laser for ionization was used to generate the plasma. The plasma wakefield is driven by a 400 GeV/c proton beam extracted from the super proton synchrotron (SPS), which undergoes a seeded self-modulation process in the plasma. The electron witness beam used to probe the wakefields is generated from an S-band RF photo-cathode gun and then accelerated by a booster structure up to energies between 16 and 20 MeV. The first run of the AWAKE experiment revealed that the maximum energy gain after the plasma cell is 2 GeV, and the SSM mechanism of the proton beam was verified. In this paper, we will present the details of the AWAKE electron injector. A comparison of the measured electron beam parameters, such as beam size, energy, and normalized emittance, with the simulation results was performed.

Overview and prospects of plasma wakefield acceleration experiments at PITZ

The Photo Injector Test Facility at DESY in Zeuthen (PITZ) carries out studies of beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA). The facility possesses a flexible photocathode laser beam shaping system and a variety of diagnostics including a high-resolution dipole spectrometer and an rf deflector which enables the observation of the longitudinal phase space of electron beams after their passage through a plasma. Two plasma sources are available: a gas discharge plasma cell and a photoionized lithium vapor plasma cell. Studies at PITZ include investigations of the self-modulation instability of long electron beams and the high transformer ratio, i.e., the ratio between the maximum accelerating field behind the drive beam and the decelerating field within the beam. This overview includes the experimental results and plans for future experiments.

First fully kinetic three-dimensional simulation of the AWAKE baseline scenario

The ‘Advanced Proton Driven Plasma Wakefield Acceleration Experiment’ (AWAKE) aims to accelerate leptons via proton-beam-driven wakefield acceleration. It comprises extensive numerical studies as well as experiments at the CERN laboratory. The baseline scenario incorporates a plasma volume of approximately 62 cm3. The plasma wavelength is about 1.25 mm and needs to be adequately resolved, using a minimum of 130 points per plasma wavelength, in order to accurately reproduce the physics. The baseline scenario incorporates the proton beam micro-bunching, the concurrent nonlinear wakefield growth as well as the off-axis electron beam injection, trapping and acceleration. We present results for the first three-dimensional simulation of this baseline scenario with a full model, using a sufficient resolution. The simulation consumed about 22 Mch of computer resources and scaled up to 32 768 cores, thanks to a multitude of adaptions, improvements and optimization of the simulation code PSC. Through this large-scale simulation effort we were able to verify the results of reduced-model simulations as well as identify important novel effects during the electron injection process.

Simulation study of CO2 laser-plasma interactions and self-modulated wakefield acceleration

3D numerical simulations of the interaction of a powerful CO2 laser with hydrogen jets demonstrating the role of ionization in the characteristics of induced wakes are presented. Simulations using SPACE, a parallel relativistic particle-in-cell code, are performed in support of the plasma wakefield accelerator experiments being conducted at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) Accelerator Test Facility (ATF). A novelty of the SPACE code is its set of efficient atomic physics algorithms that compute ionization and recombination rates on the grid and transfer them to particles. The influence of ionization on the spectrum of the pump laser has been studied for a range of gas densities. Simulations reproduce both Stokes and antiStokes shifts in the spectrum of the pump laser, similar to those observed in experiments in the spectrum of the probe. Good agreement has been achieved with the experiments on the effect of variation in gas density on Stokes/antiStokes intensity. In addition, self-injection and trapping of electrons into the self-modulated wakes have been observed and analyzed. The experimentally validated code SPACE will be used for predictive simulations to guide future experiments at BNL ATF.

Betatron radiation and emittance growth in plasma wakefield accelerators

Beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) has demonstrated significant progress during the past two decades of research. The new Facility for Advanced Accelerator Experimental Tests (FACET) II, currently under construction, will provide 10 GeV electron beams with unprecedented parameters for the next generation of PWFA experiments. In the context of the FACET II facility, we present simulation results on expected betatron radiation and its potential application to diagnose emittance preservation and hosing instability in the upcoming PWFA experiments.This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue ‘Directions in particle beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration’.

Mechanisms for the mitigation of the hose instability in plasma-wakefield accelerators

In this work we provide an in-depth analysis of mechanisms which mitigate the hose instability in the blowout regime in plasma-wakefield accelerators. We show by means of theory and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations that the mitigation mechanisms related to a beam energy spread are effective for parameters as used in major plasma-wakefield accelerator experiments and for various beam energies, beam current profiles, and types of hosing seed. In addition, we establish the theoretical principles for the reduction of the initial hosing seed in tapered vacuum-to-plasma transitions and derive respective analytic predictions which are successfully benchmarked against particle-in-cell simulations. We also investigate the possibility to facilitate efficient and stable acceleration of witness beams in the blowout regime. This work therefore provides a deepened understanding for the methods that allow for the mitigation of hosing, a crucial prerequisite to facilitate stable acceleration of high quality beams in plasma-wakefield accelerators.

Direct Observation of Plasma Waves and Dynamics Induced by Laser-Accelerated Electron Beams

Plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) is a novel acceleration technique with promising prospects for both particle colliders and light sources. However, PWFA research has so far been limited to a few large-scale accelerator facilities world-wide. Here, we present first results on plasma wakefield generation using electron beams accelerated with a 100-TW-class Ti:Sa laser. Due to their ultrashort duration and high charge density, the laser-accelerated electron bunches are suitable to drive plasma waves at electron densities in the order of $10^{19}$ cm$^{-3}$. We capture the beam-induced plasma dynamics with femtosecond resolution using few-cycle optical probing and, in addition to the plasma wave itself, we observe a distinctive transverse ion motion in its trail. This previously unobserved phenomenon can be explained by the ponderomotive force of the plasma wave acting on the ions, resulting in a modulation of the plasma density over many picoseconds. Due to the scaling laws of plasma wakefield generation, results obtained at high plasma density using high-current laser-accelerated electron beams can be readily scaled to low-density systems. Laser-driven PWFA experiments can thus act as miniature models for their larger, conventional counterparts. Furthermore, our results pave the way towards a novel generation of laser-driven PWFA, which can potentially provide ultra-low emittance beams within a compact setup.

A start to end simulation of the laser plasma wakefield acceleration experiment at ESCULAP

We present a start to end (s2e) simulation of the Laser-plasma Wakefield Accelerator (LPWA) foreseen as the ESCULAP project. We use a photo injector to produce a 5MeV 10pC electron bunch with a duration of ∼ 1 ps RMS, it is boosted to 10MeV by a S-band cavity and then compressed to 74 fs RMS (30 fs FWHM) by a magnetic compression chicane (dogleg). After the dogleg, a quadrupole doublet and a triplet are utilized to match the Twiss parameters before injecting into the subsequent plasma wakefield. A 40 TW laser is used to excite plasma wakefield in the 10 cm plasma cell. An optimized configuration has been determined yielding at the plasma exit an electron beam at 180 MeV with energy spread of ∼ 4.2%, an angular divergence of 0.6 mrad and a duration of 4 fs.

Characterization of self-modulated electron bunches in an argon plasma

The self-modulation instability is fundamental for the plasma wakefield acceleration experiment of the AWAKE (Advanced Wakefield Experiment) collaboration at CERN where this effect is used to generate proton bunches for the resonant excitation of high acceleration fields. Utilizing the availability of flexible electron beam shaping together with excellent diagnostics including an RF deflector, a supporting experiment was set up at the electron accelerator PITZ (Photo Injector Test facility at DESY, Zeuthen site), given that the underlying physics is the same. After demonstrating the effect [1] the next goal is to investigate in detail the self-modulation of long (with respect to the plasma wavelength) electron beams.In this contribution we describe parameter studies on self-modulation of a long electron bunch in an argon plasma. The plasma was generated with a discharge cell with densities in the 1013 cm−3 to 1015 cm−3 range. The plasma density was deduced from the plasma wavelength as indicated by the self-modulation period. Parameter scans were conducted with variable plasma density and electron bunch focusing.

Influence of Ionization and Beam Quality on Interaction of TW-Peak CO2 Laser With Hydrogen Plasma

3D numerical simulations of the interaction of a powerful CO2 laser with hydrogen jets demonstrating the role of ionization and laser beam quality are presented. Simulations are performed in support of the plasma wakefield accelerator experiments being conducted at the BNL Accelerator Test Facility (ATF). The CO2 laser at BNL ATF has several potential advantages for laser wakefield acceleration compared to widely used solid-state lasers. SPACE, a parallel relativistic Particle-in-Cell code, developed at SBU and BNL, has been used in these studies. A novelty of the code is its set of efficient atomic physics algorithms that compute ionization and recombination rates on the grid and transfer them to particles. The primary goal of the initial BNL experiments was to characterize the plasma density by measuring the sidebands in the spectrum of the probe laser. Simulations, that resolve hydrogen ionization and laser spectra, help explain several trends that were observed in the experiments[1].

Commissioning of beam instrumentation at the CERN AWAKE facility after integration of the electron beam line

The Advanced Proton Driven Plasma Wakefield Acceleration Experiment (AWAKE) is a project at CERN aiming to accelerate an electron bunch in a plasma wakefield driven by a proton bunch. The plasma is induced in a 10 m long rubidium vapor cell using a pulsed Ti:Sapphire laser, with the wakefield formed by a proton bunch from the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). A 16 MeV electron bunch is simultaneously injected into the plasma cell to be accelerated by the wakefield to energies in the GeV range over this short distance. After successful runs with the proton and laser beams, the electron beam line was installed and commissioned at the end of 2017 to produce and inject a suitable electron bunch into the plasma cell. To achieve the goals of the experiment, it is important to have reliable beam instrumentation measuring the various parameters of the proton, electron and laser beams. This contribution presents the status of the beam instrumentation in AWAKE and reports on the performance achieved during the AWAKE runs in 2017.

A high power, high density helicon discharge for the plasma wakefield accelerator experiment AWAKE

A plasma cell prototype for the plasma wakefield accelerator experiment AWAKE based on a helicon discharge is presented. In the 1 m long prototype module a multiple antenna helicon discharge with an rf power density of 100 MW m−3 is established. Based on the helicon dispersion relation, a linear scaling of plasma density with magnetic field is observed for rf frequencies above the lower hybrid frequency, ωLH ≤ 0.8ωrf. Density profiles are highest on the device axis and show shallow radial gradients, thus providing a relatively constant plasma density in the center over a radial range of Δr ≈ 10 mm with less than 10% variation. Peak plasma densities up to 7 × 1020 m−3 are transiently achieved with a reproducibility that is sufficient for AWAKE. The results are in good agreement with power balance calculations.