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Results for “wake field accelerator”

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 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2018

Trains of electron micro-bunches in plasma wake-field acceleration

Plasma-based charged particle accelerators have been intensively investigated in the past three decades due to their capability to open up new horizons in accelerator science and particle physics yielding electric field accelerating gradient more than three orders of magnitudes higher than in conventional devices. At the current stage the most advanced and reliable mechanism for accelerating electrons is based on the propagation of an intense laser pulse or a relativistic electron beam in a low density gaseous target. In this paper we concentrate on the electron beam-driven plasma wake-field acceleration and demonstrate using 3D PiC simulations that a train of electron micro-bunches with ~10 fs period can be generated behind the driving beam propagating in a density down-ramp. We will discuss the conditions and properties of the micro-bunches generated aiming at understanding and study of multi-bunch mechanism of injection. It is show that the periodicity and duration of micro-bunches can be controlled by adjusting the plasma density gradient and driving beam charge.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2013

Dielectric Wake Field Resonator Accelerator Module

Results are presented from experiments, and numerical analysis of wake fields set up by electron bunches passing through a cylindrical or rectangular dielectric-lined structure. These bunches excite many TM-modes, with Ez components of the wake fields sharply localized on the axis of the structure periodically behind the bunches. The experiment with the cylindrical structure, carried out at ATF Brookhaven National Laboratory, used up to three 50 MeV bunches spaced by one wake field period (21 cm) to study the superposition of wake fields by measuring the energy loss of each bunch after it passed through the 53-cm long dielectric element. The millimeter-wave spectrum of radiation excited by the passage of bunches is also studied. Numerical analysis was aimed not only to simulate the behavior of our device, but in general to predict dielectric wake field accelerator performance. It is shown that one needs to match the radius of the cylindrical dielectric channel with the bunch longitudinal rms-length to achieve optimal performance.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Particle Beam Acceleration Using 3 Petawatt Laser Pulses

The Zettawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System (ZEUS) is presently operational at the Gerard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science (CUOS) at the University of Michigan. ZEUS is a significant upgrade of the previous high power laser systems at CUOS and consists of two beamlines thatoperate in perfect synchronization. The 500 TW beamline became operational in 2023, 2 PW operation started in 2025 and full 3 PW power levels will be available in 2026. It is presently the highest power laser system in the US. In this grant the high field science group at CUOS has leveraged this unique high power laser facility to investigate laser wake field acceleration (LWFA) in ultra-high power laser plasma interactions and have shown how this can scale for future electron–positron colliders at high energy. The dual beam experimental configuration enables flexibility for many frontier experiments in laser-driven acceleration research, in particular, enabling extended channelling/acceleration experiments, positron generation/acceleration experiments and proof-of-principle transverse pumping “dephasingless” electron acceleration experiment and theory. LWFA may be able to miniaturize particle accelerators for high energy physics and also enable new sources of ultrafast, extreme brightness and precise x-rays for a wide variety of applications. In laser wake field acceleration, an electron bunch “surfs” on the electron plasma wave (the “wake field”) generated by the ponderomotive force of an intense laser. The plasma wave has a strong longitudinal electric field that stays in phase with the relativistic driver. A relativistic charged particle may, therefore, remain in phase with the accelerating field over long distances and gain ultra-relativistic energies. The accelerating electric field strength that the plasma wave can support can be many orders of magnitude higher than that of conventional accelerators, which makes laser wakefield acceleration an exciting prospect as an advanced accelerator concept. In this research project we have investigated the scaling of this mechanism to laser powers of 2 PW and have measured the x-ray emission and radio frequency emission resulting from the acceleration process. We have also performed theoretical investigation of mechanisms to scale laser driven accelerators to much higher energy using dephasingless acceleration processes.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Coherent Optical Transition Radiation Imaging for Laser-Driven Plasma Accelerator Electron-Beam Diagnostics

Application of coherent optical transition radiation (COTR) diagnostics to compact accelerators has been demonstrated for the laser-driven wake field accelerator (LWFA) case recently. It is proposed that such diagnostics for beam size, beam divergence, microbunching fraction, spectral content, and bunch length would be useful before and after any subsequent acceleration in crystals or nanostructures. In addition, there are indications that under some scenarios a microbunched beam could resonantly excite wake fields in nanostructures that might lead to an increased acceleration gradient.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Influence of a strong longitudinal magnetic field on laser wakefield acceleration

Optimization of the beam quality and electronic trapped charge in the cavity are key issues of laser wake field acceleration. The effect of an initially applied uniform magnetic field, parallel to the direction of propagation of the pump pulse, on the laser wakefield is explored. First, an analytic model for the laser wakefield is built up in the case when such an external magnetic field is applied. Then, simulations are performed with a 3D quasi-cylindrical particle in cell code in the blowout (or bubble) regime. Transverse currents are generated at the rear of the bubble which amplify the longitudinal magnetic field. For several plasma and laser parameters, the wake shape is altered and trapping can be reduced or cancelled by the magnetic field. When considering optical injection, and when two counterpropagating waves interact with a rather high plasma density, trapping is not affected by the magnetic field. In this range of plasma and laser parameters, it is shown that the longitudinal magnetic field can reduce or even prevent self-injection and enhance beam quality.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Muon acceleration in cosmic-ray sources

Many models of ultra-high energy cosmic-ray production involve acceleration in linear accelerators located in gamma-ray bursts, magnetars, or other sources. These transient sources have short lifetimes, which necessitate very high accelerating gradients, up to 10{sup 13} keV cm{sup –1}. At gradients above 1.6 keV cm{sup –1}, muons produced by hadronic interactions undergo significant acceleration before they decay. This muon acceleration hardens the neutrino energy spectrum and greatly increases the high-energy neutrino flux. Using the IceCube high-energy diffuse neutrino flux limits, we set two-dimensional limits on the source opacity and matter density, as a function of accelerating gradient. These limits put strong constraints on different models of particle acceleration, particularly those based on plasma wake-field acceleration, and limit models for sources like gamma-ray bursts and magnetars.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Highly collimated monoenergetic target-surface electron acceleration in near-critical-density plasmas

Optimized-quality monoenergetic target surface electron beams at MeV level with low normalized emittance (0.03π mm mrad) and high charge (30 pC) per shot have been obtained from 3 TW laser-solid interactions at a grazing incidence. The 2-Dimension particle-in-cell simulations suggest that electrons are wake-field accelerated in a large-scale, near-critical-density preplasma. It reveals that a bubble-like structure as an accelerating cavity appears in the near-critical-density plasma region and travels along the target surface. A bunch of electrons are pinched transversely and accelerated longitudinally by the wake field in the bubble. The outstanding normalized emittance and monochromaticity of such highly collimated surface electron beams could make it an ideal beam for fast ignition or may serve as an injector in traditional accelerators.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Extending laser plasma accelerators into the mid-IR spectral domain with a next-generation ultra-fast CO 2 laser

Here we discuss how expanding the scope of relativistic plasma research to wavelengths longer than λ/≈0.8₋1.1μm covered by conventional mode-locked solid-state lasers would offer attractive opportunities due to the quadratic scaling of the ponderomotive electron energy and critical plasma density with λ. Answering this quest, a next-generation mid-IR laser project is being advanced at the BNL ATF as a part of the user facility upgrade. We discuss the technical approach to this conceptually new 100 TW, 100 fs, λ=9₋11 μm CO 2 laser BESTIA (Brookhaven Experimental Supra-Terawatt Infrared at ATF) that encompasses several innovations applied for the first time to molecular gas lasers. BESTIA will enable new regimes of laser plasma accelerators. One for example is shock-wave ion acceleration from gas jets. We review ongoing efforts to achieve stable, monoenergetic proton acceleration by dynamically shaping the plasma density profile from a hydrogen gas target with laser-produced blast waves. At its full power, 100 TW BESTIA promises to achieve proton beams at energy exceeding 200 MeV. In addition to ion acceleration in over-critical plasma, the ultra-intense mid-IR laser BESTIA will open new opportunities in driving wakefields in tenuous plasmas, expanding the landscape of Laser Wake Field Accelerator (LWFA) studies into unexplored long-wavelength spectral domain. Simple wavelength scaling suggests that a 100-TW CO2 laser beam will be capable to efficiently generate plasma “bubbles” thousand times bigger in volume compared to a near-IR solid state laser of an equivalent power. Combined with a femtosecond electron linac available at the ATF, this wavelength scaling will facilitate study of external seeding and staging of LWFA.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Demonstration of passive plasma lensing of a laser wakefield accelerated electron bunch

We report on the first demonstration of passive all-optical plasma lensing using a two-stage setup. An intense femtosecond laser accelerates electrons in a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA) to 100 MeV over millimeter length scales. By adding a second gas target behind the initial LWFA stage we introduce a robust and independently tunable plasma lens. We observe a density dependent reduction of the LWFA electron beam divergence from an initial value of 2.3 mrad, down to 1.4 mrad (rms), when the plasma lens is in operation. Such a plasma lens provides a simple and compact approach for divergence reduction well matched to the mm-scale length of the LWFA accelerator. The focusing forces are provided solely by the plasma and driven by the bunch itself only, making this a highly useful and conceptually new approach to electron beam focusing. Possible applications of this lens are not limited to laser plasma accelerators. Since no active driver is needed the passive plasma lens is also suited for high repetition rate focusing of electron bunches. As a result, its understanding is also required for modeling the evolution of the driving particle bunch in particle driven wake field acceleration.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Reflectivity and spectrum of relativistic flying plasma mirrors

Flying plasma mirrors induced by intense lasers via laser wake field acceleration scheme have been proposed as a promising way to generate few-cycle EUV or x-ray lasers. In addition, if such a relativistic plasma mirror can accelerate, then it would serve as an analog black hole to investigate the information loss paradox associated with the black hole Hawking evaporation. Among these applications, the reflectivity, which is usually frequency-dependent, would affect the outgoing photon spectrum and, therefore, impact on the analysis of the physics under investigation. In this paper, these two issues are investigated analytically and numerically with one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. Based on our simulation results, we propose a new model that provides a better estimate of the reflectivity than those studied previously. Moreover, we found that the peak frequency of the reflected spectrum of a Gaussian incident wave deviates from the expected value, 4γ 2 ω, due to the dependence of reflectivity on the frequency of the incident wave.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗