Status of the UCLA/NICADD Plasma Density Transition Trapping Experiment
- Resource Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Source
- AIP Conference Proceedings; 737; 1; Conference: 11. advanced accelerator concepts workshop, Stony Brook, NY (United States), 21-26 Jun 2004; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.1842575; (c) 2004 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
- Subject
- 43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS BEAM INJECTION
ELECTRON BEAMS
FERMILAB
MEV RANGE 01-10
MEV RANGE 10-100
PLASMA
PLASMA DENSITY
TRAPPING
UCLA
WAKEFIELD ACCELERATORS
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 0094-243X
Plasma density transition trapping is a recently proposed self-injection scheme for plasma wake-field accelerators. This technique uses a sharp downward plasma density transition to trap and accelerate background plasma electrons in a plasma wake-field. This paper recounts the first attempt to demonstrate density transition trapping experimentally. The goal of the experiment is to capture a {approx} 100 pC, 1.5 MeV beam with 4% rms energy spread out of a 2.5x1013 cm-3 peak density plasma using a 6nC, 14 MeV drive beam. The first experimental run occurred at the Fermilab NICADD Photoinjector Laboratory (FNPL) between January and May 2004. While several key objectives were achieved, we were unable to achieve the drive beam parameters necessary for the experiment due to technical problems. We are in the process of resolving these problems in preparation for a second experimental run.