title: Plasma wakefield acceleration in self-ionized gas or plasmas.
abstract: Tunnel ionizing neutral gas with the self-field of a charged particle beam is explored as a possible way of creating plasma sources for a plasma wakefield accelerator [Bruhwiler et al., Phys. Plasmas (to be published)]. The optimal gas density for maximizing the plasma wakefield without preionized plasma is studied using the PIC simulation code OSIRIS [R. Hemker et al., in Proceeding of the Fifth IEEE Particle Accelerator Conference (IEEE, 1999), pp. 3672-3674]. To obtain wakefields comparable to the optimal preionized case, the gas density needs to be seven times higher than the plasma density in a typical preionized case. A physical explanation is given.
authors.affiliation: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.forename: C D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Barnes
authors.forename: C E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Clayton
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: O'Connell
authors.forename: F J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Decker
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Erdem
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Fonseca
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Hogan
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Iverson
authors.forename: D K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Joshi
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Katsouleas
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Krejcik
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: K A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Marsh
authors.forename: W B
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Mori
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Muggli
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Tsung