Relativistic electron beam driven longitudinal wake-wave breaking in a cold plasma

Abstract

Space-time evolution of relativistic electron beam driven wake-field in a cold, homogeneous plasma, is studied using 1D-fluid simulation techniques. It is observed that the wake wave gradu- ally evolves and eventually breaks, exhibiting sharp spikes in the density profile and sawtooth like features in the electric field profile [1]. It is shown here that the excited wakefield is a longitudi- nal Akhiezer-Polovin mode [2] and its steepening (breaking) can be understood in terms of phase mixing of this mode, which arises because of relativistic mass variation effects. Further the phase mixing time (breaking time) is studied as a function of beam density and beam velocity and is found to follow the well known scaling presented in ref.[3].

References in corpus (2)

• Developments in laser-driven plasma accelerators
• Analytical Estimate of Phase Mixing Time of Longitudinal Akhiezer - Polovin Wave

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Mode conversion and laser energy absorption by plasma under an inhomogeneous external magnetic field
• New regime of plasma wake field acceleration in the extreme blowout regime
• Differences in 1D electron plasma wake field acceleration in MeV versus GeV and linear versus blowout regimes
• Effect of Ion Motion on Breaking of Longitudinal Relativistically Strong Plasma Waves: Khachatryan mode revisited