Observation of beam loading in a laser-plasma accelerator

Abstract

Beam loading is the phenomenon which limits the charge and the beam quality in plasma based accelerators. An experimental study conducted with a laser-plasma accelerator is presented. Beam loading manifests itself through the decrease of the beam energy, the reduction of dark current and the increase of the energy spread for large beam charge. 3D PIC simulations are compared to the experimental results and confirm the effects of beam loading. It is found that, in our experimental conditions, the trapped electron beams generate decelerating fields on the order of 1 GV/m/pC and that beam loading effects are optimized for trapped charges of about 20 pC.

10 pages,4 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Beam loading in the nonlinear regime of plasma-based acceleration

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Femtosecond x rays from laser-plasma accelerators
• Physics of nanocoulomb-class electron beams in laser-plasma wakefields
• Dual-energy electron beams from a compact laser-driven accelerator
• Laser Wakefield Acceleration Using Wire Produced Double Density Ramps
• Efficiency versus instability in plasma accelerators
• Bayesian optimization of laser-plasma accelerators assisted by reduced physical models
• Proof-of-principle experiment for nanoparticle-assisted laser wakefield acceleration
• Numerical modeling of laser tunneling ionization in Particle in Cell Codes with a laser envelope model
• Ionization injection in a laser wakefield accelerator subject to a transverse magnetic field
• Acceleration with Self-Injection for an All-Optical Radiation Source at LNF
• Charge coupling in multi-stage laser wakefield acceleration
• Quasi-monoenergetic electron beams from laser plasma acceleration using nitrogen gas jet
• First Electron Acceleration in a Tunable-Velocity Laser Wakefield
• Layout considerations for a future electron plasma research accelerator facility EuPRAXIA