Title :
Demonstration of plasma beat wave acceleration of electrons from 2 MeV to 20 MeV
Author :
Clayton, C.E. ; Marsh, K.A. ; Everett, M. ; Lal, A. ; Joshi, C.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. Eng., California Univ., Los Angeles, CA, USA
Abstract :
We describe the results from recent experimental on the plasma beat wave accelerator (PBWA) scheme at UCLA. A relativistic electron plasma wave (which is the accelerating structure) is resonantly excited in a plasma by the beating of two co-propagating electromagnetic waves (obtained from a CO2 laser operating simultaneously on two wavelengths). A 2 MeV, 200 mA (peak-current) electron beam, roughly 1 nsec (FWHM) in duration is used as a source of test particles for measuring the longitudinal fields of the plasma wave which itself is moving with a relativistic Lorentz factor of about 34. Accelerated electrons are energy-selected with an imaging sector magnet and detected simultaneously with a cloud chamber and surface barrier detectors. Initial experiments show that electrons are accelerated up to 20 MeV over roughly 1 cm (the uniform length of plasma) indicating an gradient of acceleration of more than 1.8 GeV/m
Keywords :
beam handling equipment; cloud chambers; collective accelerators; electromagnets; electron accelerators; semiconductor counters; 1 ns; 2 to 20 MeV; 200 mA; CO2; CO2 laser; PBWA scheme; UCLA; accelerating structure; cloud chamber; copropagating electromagnetic waves; electrons; imaging sector magnet; longitudinal fields; plasma beat wave acceleration; relativistic Lorentz factor; relativistic electron plasma wave; surface barrier detectors; test particles; Acceleration; Electromagnetic scattering; Electron beams; Laser excitation; Plasma accelerators; Plasma measurements; Plasma sources; Plasma waves; Resonance; Testing;
Conference_Titel :
Particle Accelerator Conference, 1993., Proceedings of the 1993
Conference_Location :
Washington, DC
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-1203-1
DOI :
10.1109/PAC.1993.309385
