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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 145 records · Page 8
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Design study for a compact, two-stage, laser-plasma-based source of positron beams

Owing to their large accelerating gradients, plasma-based accelerators have attracted considerable interest as potential drivers for future, compact electron–positron colliders. Despite great progress achieved in plasma-based electron acceleration, positron acceleration still remains a challenging task, with an efficient positron source being the prerequisite for such acceleration. Here a concept for a compact, two-stage plasma-based positron source is discussed. In the first stage the positrons are created by a multi GeV electron beam produced by a laser-plasma accelerator interacting with a solid density foil. In the second stage the positrons are captured and accelerated in a plasma wave driven by either an electron beam or a laser pulse. Three potential configurations of such a source are considered: (i) a single electron beam is used for both the creation of positrons in the foil and for driving the wakefield in the second stage; (ii) a train of two electron beams is used: the positrons produced by the trailing beam in the foil are captured and accelerated in the second stage by the plasma wave generated by the leading beam; and (iii) a single electron beam is used to produce positrons in the foil and an independent laser pulse is coupled to the second stage to drive the plasma wave. In conclusion, these three configurations show different degrees of effectiveness with positron capture efficiency, varying from less than a percent to almost half of all produced positrons.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2020

Direct Observations of Sub-micropulse Electron-beam Effects from Short-range Wakefields in TESLA-type Superconducting RF Cavities

The preservation of the low emittance of electron beams during transport in the accelerating structures of large facilities is an ongoing challenge. In the cases of the TESLA-type superconducting rf cavities currently used in the European X-ray Free-electron Laser (FEL) and the under construction Linac Coherent Light Source upgrade (LCLS-II), off-axis beam transport may result in emittance dilution due to transverse long-range and short-range wakefields (SRW)*. To investigate such effects, experiments were performed at the Fermilab Accelerator Science and Technology (FAST) facility with its unique two-cavity configuration after the photocathode rf gun. We used optical transition radiation (OTR) imaging with a UV-visible synchroscan streak camera to display sub-micropulse y-t effects in the 41-MeV beam. The head-tail transverse kicks within the 11-ps-long micropulses were observed at the 100-micron level for steering off-axis in one cavity and several 100 microns for two cavities. Since the SRW kick angles go inversely with energy, these results may inform the commissioning plans of the LCLS-II injector where beam will be injected at ~1 MeV into a cryomodule.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Strong-field QED limitations on TeV-class plasma wakefield accelerators

We demonstrate that quantum and classical radiation effects can become non-negligible for TeV-class beams propagating through plasma channels typical of staged plasma accelerators. Although the quantum nonlinearity parameter χ e remains small under currently envisioned experimental conditions, the cumulative influence of radiation over long acceleration distances can lead to significant modifications to the beam’s energy spread, emittance, and polarization. Our analytic models, validated by particle-in-cell simulations, highlight that for standard Gaussian beams, the orbit-induced energy spread dominates over quantum stochastic effects but can be mitigated by tailoring the beam profile, for example, through ring-shaped transverse distributions. In regimes where the radiation reaction approaches the accelerating force, the emittance may be cooled, forming distinctive ring-shaped phase-space structures. Finally, we analyze the influence of the radiation effect on spin transport inside the wakefield. These findings underscore the importance of considering both classical and quantum radiation dynamics in the design and optimization of future high-intensity plasma accelerators.

accelerator↗
DOE OSTI2021

Investigations of Long-Range Wakefield Effects in a TESLA-type Cryomodule at FAST

The preservation of low emittance of electron beams during transport in the accelerating structures of large facilities is an ongoing challenge. In the cases of the TESLA-type superconducting rf cavities currently used in the European X-ray Free-electron Laser (XFEL) and the under-construction Linac Coherent Light Source upgrade (LCLS-II), off-axis beam transport may result in emittance dilution due to transverse long-range wakefields (LRWs) and short-range wakefields (SRW)***. To investigate such effects, experiments were performed at the Fermilab Accelerator Science and Technology (FAST) facility with its unique configuration of two TESLA-type cavities after the photocathode rf gun followed by an 8-cavity cryomodule CM). We generated beam trajectory changes with the H/V125 corrector set located 4 m upstream of the cryomodule. At 125 pC/bunch, 50 bunches, 25-MeV input, and 100-MeV exit energy, we observed for the first time submacropulse position slews of up to 500 microns at locations ~3 m after the CM and a centroid oscillation at a difference frequency of 240 kHz further downstream. Both are emittance-dilution effects which we mitigated with selective upstream beam steering.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Wakefield generation in hydrogen and lithium plasmas at FACET-II: Diagnostics and first beam-plasma interaction results

Plasma wakefield acceleration provides ultrahigh acceleration gradients of tens of GeV/m, providing a novel path toward efficient, compact, TeV-scale linear colliders, and high brightness free electron lasers. Critical to the success of these applications is demonstrating simultaneously high gradient acceleration, high energy transfer efficiency, and preservation of emittance, charge, and energy spread. Experiments at the FACET-II National User Facility at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory aim to achieve all of these milestones in a single-stage plasma wakefield accelerator, providing a 10 GeV energy gain in a < 1 m plasma with high energy transfer efficiency. Such a demonstration depends critically on diagnostics able to measure emittance with mm mrad accuracy, energy spectra to determine both percent level energy spread, and broadband energy gain and loss, incoming longitudinal phase space, and matching dynamics. This paper discusses the experimental setup at FACET-II, including the incoming beam parameters from the FACET-II linac, plasma sources, and diagnostics developed to meet this challenge. Initial progress on the generation of beam ionized wakes in meter-scale hydrogen gas is discussed as well as commissioning of the plasma sources and diagnostics. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Start-to-End Simulation of the Drive-Beam Longitudinal Dynamics for Beam-Driven Wakefield Acceleration

Collinear beam-driven wakefield acceleration (WFA) relies on shaped driver beam to provide higher accelerating gradient at a smaller cost and physical footprint. This acceleration scheme is currently envisioned to accelerate electron beams capable of driving free-electron laser *. Start-to-end simulation of drive-bunch beam dynamics is crucial for the evaluation of the design of accelerators built upon WFA. We report the start-to-end longitudinal beam dynamics simulations of an accelerator beamline capable of producing high charge drive beam. The generated wakefield when it passes through a corrugated waveguide results in a transformer ratio of 5. This paper especially discusses the challenges and criteria associated with the generation of temporally-shaped driver beam, including the beam formation in the photoinjector, and the influence of energy chirp control on beam transport stability.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Electro-optic sampling beam position monitor for relativistic electron beams

Here, 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.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Traveling wakefield tube: THz source powered by nonrelativistic electron beam

High peak power, tunable, narrowband terahertz emitters are becoming sought after given their portability, efficiency, and ability to be deployed in the field for industrial, medical, and military applications. The use of accelerator systems producing THz frequencies via Cherenkov radiation, generated by passing an electron beam through a slow-wave wakefield structure, is a promising method to meet future THz requirements. To date, efforts have been dedicated to analysis and design of sources utilizing laser seeded bunched electron beam drivers with relativistic energies beyond 5 MeV. Presented here is a wakefield THz generation scheme based on passing a long quasi-dc nonrelativistic beam (200 keV) through a dielectric loaded travelling wave structure. Reduced energy allows for compactness and portability of the accelerator as the size and weight of the dielectric slow wave structure is vanishingly small compared to the accelerator unit. The presented scheme can serve as a tunable high peak power THz source operated between 0.4-1.6 THz and produces power gain by a factor of five with an average efficiency of 6.8%

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Multi-GeV wakefield acceleration in a plasma-modulated plasma accelerator

We investigate the accelerator stage of a plasma-modulated plasma accelerator (P-MoPA) [Jakobsson , ] using both the paraxial wave equation and particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations. We show that adjusting the laser and plasma parameters of the modulator stage of a P-MoPA allows the temporal profile of pulses within the pulse train to be controlled, which in turn allows the wake amplitude in the accelerator stage to be as much as 72 % larger than that generated by a plasma beat-wave accelerator with the same total drive laser energy. Our analysis shows that Rosenbluth-Liu detuning is unimportant in a P-MoPA if the number of pulses in the train is less than ∼ 30 , and that this detuning is also partially counteracted by increased red-shifting, and hence increased pulse spacing, towards the back of the train. An analysis of transverse mode oscillations of the driving pulse train is found to be in good agreement with 2D (Cartesian) PIC simulations. PIC simulations demonstrating energy gains of ∼ 1.5 GeV ( ∼ 2.5 GeV ) for drive pulse energies of 2.4 J ( 5.0 J ) are presented. Our results suggest that P-MoPAs driven by few-joule, picosecond pulses, such as those provided by high-repetition-rate thin-disk lasers, could accelerate electron bunches to multi-GeV energies at pulse repetition rates in the kilohertz range. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

van de Wetering, J. J. (ORCID:0000000303292355)↗
DOE OSTI2024

Temporal evolution of the light emitted by a thin, laser-ionized plasma source

We present an experimental and simulation-based investigation of the temporal evolution of light emission from a thin, laser-ionized helium plasma source. We demonstrate an analytic model to calculate the approximate scaling of the time-integrated, on-axis light emission with the initial plasma density and temperature, supported by the experiment, which enhances the understanding of plasma light measurement for plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA) plasma sources. Our model simulates the plasma density and temperature using a split-step Fourier code and a particle-in-cell code. A fluid simulation is then used to model the plasma and neutral density, and the electron temperature as a function of time and position. We then show the numerical results of the space-and-time-resolved light emission and that collisional excitation is the dominant source of light emission. We validate our model by measuring the light emitted by a laser-ionized plasma using a novel statistical method capable of resolving the nanosecond-scale temporal dynamics of the plasma light using a cost-effective camera with microsecond-scale timing jitter. This method is ideal for deployment in the high radiation environment of a particle accelerator that precludes the use of expensive nanosecond-gated cameras. Our results show that our models can effectively simulate the dynamics of a thin, laser-ionized plasma source. In addition, this work provides a detailed understanding of the plasma light measurement, which is one of the few diagnostic signals available for the direct measurement of PWFA plasma sources.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

U.S. advanced and novel accelerator beam test facilities

Demonstrating the viability of Advanced Accelerator Concepts (AAC) relies on experimental validation. Over the last three decades, the U.S. has maintained a portfolio of advanced and novel accelerator test facilities to support research critical to AAC. The facilities have enabled pioneering developments in a wide variety of beam and accelerator physics, including plasma-wakefield and structure-wakefield acceleration. This work provides an overview of the current portfolio of U.S. facilities possessing charged particle drive beams with high energies, on the order of tens of joules per pulse, or drive lasers with high peak powers, on the order of a petawatt, and are actively conducting AAC research.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Tunable Plasma Linearizer for Compensation of Nonlinear Energy Chirp

The removal of undesired nonlinear time-energy correlation (energy chirp) present in relativistic electron beams is crucial for many accelerator-based scientific applications, such as free-electron lasers, high-energy electron radiography, and MeV ultrafast electron microscopy. Here, we propose and demonstrate that a low-density plasma section can be used as a passive “linearizer” to significantly compensate for the nonlinear energy chirp imprinted on a beam by the curvature of the radio-frequency field in a conventional accelerator. Physically, the passage of the beam through the plasma excites a strong quasi-cosinoidal longitudinal decelerating wakefield that acts to mitigate the beam’s nonlinear energy chirp by superimposing a reverse chirp on the beam. Time-resolved phase-space measurements, combined with high-fidelity three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations show that the longitudinal phase space of the beam core is almost completely linearized, leading to a fourfold reduction of the beam overall energy spread from 0.148% to 0.036% (FWHM).

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Resonant Emittance Mixing of Flat Beams in Plasma Accelerators

Linear colliders rely on high-quality flat beams to achieve the desired event rate while avoiding potentially deleterious beamstrahlung effects. Here, we show that flat beams in plasma accelerators can be subject to quality degradation due to emittance mixing. This effect occurs when the beam particles' betatron oscillations in a nonlinearly coupled wakefield become resonant in the horizontal and vertical planes. Emittance mixing can lead to a substantial decrease of the luminosity, the main quantity determining the event rate. In some cases, the use of laser drivers or flat particle beam drivers may decrease the fraction of resonant particles and, hence, mitigate emittance deterioration.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Terawatt attosecond x-ray source driven by a plasma accelerator

Plasma accelerators can generate ultra-high-brightness electron beams that open the door to light sources with a smaller physical footprint and properties un-achievable with conventional accelerator technology. In this paper, we show that electron beams from Plasma WakeField Accelerators can generate few-cycle coherent tunable soft x-ray pulses with TW peak power and a duration of tens of attoseconds, an order of magnitude more powerful, shorter, and with better stability than state-of-the-art X-ray Free Electron Lasers (XFELs). Such a light source would significantly enhance the ability to experimentally investigate electron dynamics on ultrafast timescales, having a broad-ranging impact across multiple scientific fields. Rather than starting from noise as in typical XFELs, the x-ray emission in this approach is driven by coherent radiation from a pre-bunched, high peak current electron beam of attosecond duration. This relaxes the restrictive tolerances that have hindered progress toward utilizing plasma accelerators as coherent x-ray drivers thus far, presenting a new paradigm for advanced accelerator light source applications.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Observation of Polarization-Dependent Changes in Higher-Order Mode Responses as a Function of Transverse Beam Position in Tesla-Type Cavities at FAST

Higher-order modes (HOMs) in superconducting rf cavities present problems for an electron bunch traversing the cavity in the form of long-range wakefields from previous bunches. These may dilute the emittance of the macropulse average, especially with low emittance beams at facilities such as the European X-ray Free-electron Laser (XFEL) and the upgraded Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS-II). Here we present observations of HOMs driven by the beam at the Fermilab Accelerator Science and Technology (FAST) facility. The FAST facility features two independent TESLA-type cavities (CC1 and CC2) after a photocathode rf gun followed by an 8-cavity cryomodule. The HOM signals were acquired from cavities using bandpass filters of 1.75 ± 0.15 GHz, 2.5 ± 0.2 GHz, and 3.25 ± 0.2 GHz and recorded using an 8-GHz, 20 GSa/s oscilloscope. The frequency resolution obtained is sufficient to separate polarization components of many of the HOMs. These HOM signals were captured from CC1 and cavities 1 and 8 of the cryomodule for various initial trajectories through the cavities, and we observe correlations between trajectory, HOM signals, and which polarization component of a mode is affected.

Thurman-Keup, Randy Michael↗
DOE OSTI2021

White paper on NIF Discovery Science and frontier regimes of HEDP

Over the past two decades, experimental capabilities at high energy density (HED) facilities such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF), Omega, and Omega EP lasers, and the Z pulsed power facility are able to make precision measurements of fundamental quantities such as equations of state (EOS), material phase, opacities, and ionization levels Z. Flow based quantities are also being studied, such as hydrodynamic instabilities, evolution into turbulence, turbulent dynamo magnetic field amplification, magnetic reconnection; plasma instabilities, plasma wakefield particle acceleration; and relativistic plasma phenomena, such as (e + ,e - ) pair creation. Experimental regimes can be created that reproduce conditions relevant to planetary and exoplanet interiors, stellar interiors, the interiors of brown dwarfs, and the envelope conditions of white dwarf stars. Diagnostic techniques have been developed hand in hand with these new experimental regimes that can be accessed. In this white paper, a brief summary of key experimental achievements from the NIF Discovery Science (basic science) program will be presented; followed by a discussion of current challenges, needs, and potential paths forward.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Nanometer-scale prebunched electron beams generated from all-optical plasma-based acceleration

High-quality and prebunched electron beams can produce coherent x-rays with high intensity and narrow bandwidth, which are essential for modern light sources. An all-optical scheme based on plasma-based acceleration for producing bright electron beams that are prebunched on the nanometer scale is proposed. By using a density modulation created by two low intensity counterpropagating lasers, the phase velocity of the plasma wake excited by an intense driver laser in a uniform plasma can be modulated at a frequency twice that of the colliding lasers, thus turning the injection on and off. The injected electrons are microbunched at the Doppler-shifted modulated wavelength, corresponding to the phase velocity of the gradually expanding wakefield. It is demonstrated that by controlling the properties of the drive and colliding lasers, beams with exotic prebunched structures can be produced, which may have critical applications in ultrafast high power x-rays. This extremely compact, all-optical scheme for producing ultrabright prebunched electron beams may therefore enable novel applications for ultrafast x-ray users and arouse general interest in various fields.

Beam injection, extraction & transport↗
DOE OSTI2023

Attosecond-Angstrom free-electron-laser towards the cold beam limit

Electron beam quality is paramount for X-ray pulse production in free-electron-lasers (FELs). State-of-the-art linear accelerators (linacs) can deliver multi-GeV electron beams with sufficient quality for hard X-ray-FELs, albeit requiring km-scale setups, whereas plasma-based accelerators can produce multi-GeV electron beams on metre-scale distances, and begin to reach beam qualities sufficient for EUV FELs. Here we show, that electron beams from plasma photocathodes many orders of magnitude brighter than state-of-the-art can be generated in plasma wakefield accelerators (PWFAs), and then extracted, captured, transported and injected into undulators without significant quality loss. These ultrabright, sub-femtosecond electron beams can drive hard X-FELs near the cold beam limit to generate coherent X-ray pulses of attosecond-Angstrom class, reaching saturation after only 10 metres of undulator. This plasma-X-FEL opens pathways for advanced photon science capabilities, such as unperturbed observation of electronic motion inside atoms at their natural time and length scale, and towards higher photon energies.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗