Quasi-stable injection channels in a wakefield accelerator

Abstract

The influence of initial position on the acceleration of externally-injected electrons in a plasma wakefield is investigated. Test-particle simulations show previously unobserved complex structure in the parameter space, with quasi-stable injection channels forming for particles injected in narrow regions away from the wake centre. Particles injected into these channels remain in the wake for a considerable time after dephasing, and as a result achieve significantly higher energy than their neighbours. The result is relevant to both the planning and optimisation of experiments making use of external injection.

5 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (4)

• AWAKE, The Advanced Proton Driven Plasma Wakefield Acceleration Experiment at CERN
• Path to AWAKE: Evolution of the concept
• Excitation of two-dimensional plasma wakefields by trains of equidistant particle bunches
• Electron trapping and acceleration by the plasma wakefield of a self-modulating proton beam