High-field plasma acceleration in a high-ionization-potential gas.
Plasma accelerators driven by particle beams are a very promising future accelerator technology as they can sustain high accelerating fields over long distances with high energy efficiency. They rely on the excitation of a plasma wave in the wake of a drive beam. To generate the plasma, a neutral gas can be field-ionized by the head of the drive beam, in which case the distance of acceleration and energy gain can be strongly limited by head erosion. Here we overcome this limit and demonstrate that electrons in the tail of a drive beam can be accelerated by up to 27 GeV in a high-ionization-potential gas (argon), boosting their initial 20.35 GeV energy by 130%. Particle-in-cell simulations show that the argon plasma is sustaining very high electric fields, of ∼150 GV m(-1), over ∼20 cm. The results open new possibilities for the design of particle beam drivers and plasma sources.
LOA, ENSTA ParisTech, CNRS, École Polytechnique, Université Paris-Saclay, Palaiseau 91762, France.
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0000-0002-5015-0387
S
Corde
Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Oslo 0316, Norway.
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E
Adli
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
J M
JM
Allen
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.|Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
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0000-0003-3829-3526
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An
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
C I
CI
Clarke
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
B
B
Clausse
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
C E
CE
Clayton
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
J P
JP
Delahaye
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
J
J
Frederico
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
S
S
Gessner
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
S Z
SZ
Green
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
M J
MJ
Hogan
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
C
C
Joshi
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
M
M
Litos
IFSA Collaborative Innovation Center, Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 10084, China.
W
W
Lu
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
K A
KA
Marsh
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.|Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
W B
WB
Mori
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
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0000-0003-2619-1303
N
Vafaei-Najafabadi
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
D
D
Walz
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
V
V
Yakimenko