Search Results (47 total)

We report experimental observation of narrow-band coherent Cherenkov radiation driven by a subpicosecond electron bunch traveling along the axis of a hollow cylindrical dielectric-lined waveguide. For an appropriate choice of dielectric wall thickness, a short-pulse beam current profile excites only the fundamental mode of the structure, producing energetic pulses in the terahertz range. We present detailed measurements showing a narrow emission spectrum peaked at 367±3  GHz from a 1 cm long fused silica capillary tube with submillimeter transverse dimensions, closely matching predictions. We demonstrate a 100 GHz shift in the emitted central frequency when the tube wall thickness is changed by 50  μm. Calibrated measurements of the radiated energy indicate up to 10  μJ per 60 ps pulse for an incident beam charge of 200 pC, corresponding to a peak power of approximately 150 kW.

Using an experimental scheme based on a vertically deflecting rf deflector and a horizontally dispersing dipole, we characterize the longitudinal phase space of the beam in the blow-out regime at the UCLA Pegasus rf photoinjector. Because of the achievement of unprecedented resolution both in time (50 fs) and energy (1.0 keV), we are able to demonstrate some important properties of the beams created in this regime such as extremely low longitudinal emittance, large temporal energy chirp, and the degrading effects of the cathode image charge in the longitudinal phase space which eventually leads to poorer beam quality. All of these results have been found in good agreement with simulations.

We have shown that a seventh-order inverse-free-electron laser (IFEL) interaction, where the radiation frequency is the seventh harmonic of the fundamental resonant frequency, can microbunch a beam of relativistic electrons inside an undulator. Using coherent transition radiation (CTR) emitted by the bunched 12.3 MeV beam as a diagnostic, strong microbunching of the beam is inferred from the observation of CTR at the first, second, and third harmonics of the seed 10  μm radiation. Three-dimensional IFEL simulations show that the observed harmonic ratios can be explained only if transverse spatial distribution of the steepened bunched beam is taken into account.

Microbunching of a relativistic electron beam into a helix is examined analytically and in simulation. Helical microbunching is shown to occur naturally when an e beam interacts resonantly at the harmonics of the combined field of a helical magnetic undulator and an axisymmetric input laser beam. This type of interaction is proposed as a method to generate a strongly prebunched e beam for coherent emission of light with orbital angular momentum at virtually any wavelength. The results from the linear microbunching theory show excellent agreement with three-dimensional numerical simulations.

Coherent radiation emitted from a compressed electron bunch as it traverses the sharp edge regions of a magnetic chicane has been investigated at the Brookhaven National Laboratory Accelerator Test Facility. Electron beam measurements using coherent transition radiation interferometry indicate a 100 fs rms bunch accompanied by distinct distortions in energy spectrum due to strong self-fields. These self-fields are manifested in emitted high power THz radiation, which displays signatures of the phenomenon known as coherent edge radiation. Radiation characterization studies undertaken include spectral analysis, far-field intensity distribution, polarization, and dependence on the electron bunch length. The observed aspects of the beam and radiation allow detailed comparisons with start-to-end simulations.

For 40 years, uniformly filled ellipsoidal beam distributions have been studied theoretically, as they hold the promise of generating self-fields linear in the coordinate offset in all three directions. Recently, a scheme for producing such distributions, based on the strong longitudinal expansion of an initially very short beam under its own space-charge forces, has been proposed. In this Letter we present the experimental demonstration of this scheme, obtained by illuminating the cathode in a rf photogun with an ultrashort laser pulse (∼35  fs rms) with an appropriate transverse profile. The resulting 4 MeV beam spatiotemporal (x,t) distribution is imaged using a rf deflecting cavity with 50 fs resolution. A temporal asymmetry in the ellipsoidal profile, due to image charge effects at the photocathode, is observed at higher charge operation. This distortion is also found to degrade the transverse beam quality.

We report the first successful attempt to generate ultrashort (1–10 ps) relativistic electron bunches characterized by a ramped longitudinal current profile that rises linearly from head to tail and then falls sharply to zero. Bunches with this type of longitudinal shape may be applied to plasma-based accelerator schemes as an optimized drive beam, and to free-electron lasers as a means of reducing asymmetry in microbunching due to slippage. The scheme used to generate the ramped bunches employs an anisochronous dogleg beam line with nonlinear correction elements to compress a beam having an initial positive time-energy chirp. The beam current profile is measured using a deflecting mode cavity, and a pseudoreconstruction of the beam’s longitudinal phase space distribution is obtained by using this diagnostic with a residual horizontal dispersion after the dogleg.

First measurements of the breakdown threshold in a dielectric subjected to GV/m wakefields produced by short (30–330 fs), 28.5 GeV electron bunches have been made. Fused silica tubes of 100  μm inner diameter were exposed to a range of bunch lengths, allowing surface dielectric fields up to 27  GV/m to be generated. The onset of breakdown, detected through light emission from the tube ends, is observed to occur when the peak electric field at the dielectric surface reaches 13.8±0.7  GV/m. The correlation of structure damage to beam-induced breakdown is established using an array of postexposure inspection techniques.

A comprehensive analysis is presented that describes amplification of a seed THz pulse in a single-pass free-electron laser (FEL) driven by a photoinjector. The dynamics of the radiation pulse and the modulated electron beam are modeled using the time-dependent FEL code, GENESIS 1.3. A 10-ps (FWHM) electron beam with a peak current of 50–100 A allows amplification of a ∼1  kW seed pulse in the frequency range 0.5–3 THz up to 10–100 MW power in a relatively compact 2-m long planar undulator. The electron beam driving the FEL is strongly modulated, with some inhomogeneity due to the slippage effect. It is shown that THz microbunching of the electron beam is homogeneous over the entire electron pulse when saturated FEL amplification is utilized at the very entrance of an undulator. This requires seeding of a 30-cm long undulator buncher with a 1–3 MW of pump power with radiation at the resonant frequency. A narrow-band seed pulse in the THz range needed for these experiments can be generated by frequency mixing of CO₂ laser lines in a GaAs nonlinear crystal. Two schemes for producing MW power pulses in seeded FELs are considered in some detail for the beam parameters achievable at the Neptune Laboratory at UCLA: the first uses a waveguide to transport radiation in the 0.5–3 THz range through a 2-m long FEL amplifier and the second employs high-gain third harmonic generation using the FEL process at 3–9 THz.

In a recent paper it has been shown that single electron Thomson backscatter calculations can be performed including the effects of pulsed high intensity lasers. In this paper we present a more detailed treatment of the problem and present results for more general scattering geometries. In particular, we present new results for 90° Thomson scattering. Such geometries have been increasingly studied as x-ray sources of short-pulse radiation. Also, we present a clearer physical basis for these different cases.

A slab-symmetric dielectric-loaded accelerator structure, consisting of a vacuum gap between dielectric-lined conducting walls, is described. The device is resonantly excited by an external drive laser which is side coupled into the acceleration region; a novel coupling scheme, which consists of an array of narrow, equally spaced slots in the upper structure boundary, is presented and analyzed in detail. This structure partakes of the advantages of earlier slab-symmetric optical acceleration proposals, but will use a terahertz-frequency external radiation source (λ=340   μm), allowing realistic electron beams to be used in a proof-of-principle experiment. Two- and three-dimensional electromagnetic simulations are used to verify the mode patterns and study the effects of the couplers, including time-dependent calculations of the filling of the structure and particle-in-cell computations of the beam wakefields. Details of the resonance are found to be highly sensitive to the coupling slot geometry: the presence of the couplers can lead to frequency detuning, changes in the field breakdown limits and overall Q factor, and distortions of the field pattern. Beam wakefields are enhanced by the presence of the slots, but found to have no significant effect on the beam transport. The resonant accelerating fields, which are nearly constant along the short transverse direction, are found to have between 10 and 15 times the amplitude of the driving radiation, with only a small (<10%) admixture of other nonaccelerating modes. Field gradients are computed to be near 100  MV/m when the structure is driven with 100 MW of terahertz laser power. Possible manufacturing methods for a prototype device are discussed.

Recent proposals for using plasma wakefield accelerators (PWFA) as a component of a linear collider have included intense electron beams with densities many times in excess of the plasma density. The beam’s electric fields expel the plasma electrons from the beam path to many beam radii in this regime. We analyze here the motion of plasma ions under the beam fields, and find for a proposed PWFA collider scenario that the ions completely collapse inside of the beam. Simulations of ion collapse are presented. Implications of ion motion on the feasibility of the PWFA-based colliders are discussed.

Observation of ultrawide bandwidth, up to 15% full-width, high-gain operation of a self-amplified spontaneous emission free-election laser (SASE FEL) is reported. This type of lasing is obtained with a strongly chirped beam (δE/E∼1.7%) emitted from the accelerator. Because of nonlinear pulse compression during transport, a short, high current bunch with strong mismatch errors is injected into the undulator, giving high FEL gain. Start-to-end simulations reproduce key features of the measurements and provide insight into mechanisms, such as angular spread in emitted photon and electron trajectory distributions, which yield novel features in the radiation spectrum.

Advanced high-brightness beam applications such as inverse-Compton scattering (ICS) depend on achieving of ultrasmall spot sizes in high current beams. Modern injectors and compressors enable the production of high-brightness beams having needed short bunch lengths and small emittances. Along with these beam properties comes the need to produce tighter foci, using stronger, shorter focal length optics. An approach to creating such strong focusing systems using high-field, small-bore permanent-magnet quadrupoles (PMQs) is reported here. A final-focus system employing three PMQs, each composed of 16 neodymium iron boride sectors in a Halbach geometry has been installed in the PLEIADES ICS experiment. The field gradient in these PMQs is 560   T/m, the highest ever reported in a magnetic optics system. As the magnets are of a fixed field strength, the focusing system is tuned by adjusting the position of the three magnets along the beam line axis, in analogy to familiar camera optics. This paper discusses the details of the focusing system, simulation, design, fabrication, and experimental procedure in creating ultrasmall beams at PLEIADES.

We expand the theory of the inverse free electron laser (IFEL) interaction to include the possibility of energy exchange that takes place when relativistic particles traversing an undulator interact with an electromagnetic wave of a frequency that is a harmonic of the fundamental wiggler resonant frequency. We derive the coupling coefficients as a function of the IFEL parameters for all harmonics, both odd and even. The theory is supported by simulation results obtained with a three-dimensional Lorentz equation solver code. Comparisons are made between the results of theory and simulations, and the recent UCLA IFEL experimental results where higher harmonic IFEL interaction was observed.

Energy gain of trapped electrons in excess of 20 MeV has been demonstrated in an inverse-free-electron-laser (IFEL) accelerator experiment. A 14.5 MeV electron beam is copropagated with a 400 GW CO₂ laser beam in a 50 cm long undulator strongly tapered in period and field amplitude. The Rayleigh range of the laser, ∼1.8  cm, is much shorter than the undulator length yielding a diffraction-dominated interaction. Experimental results on the dependence of the acceleration on injection energy, laser focus position, and laser power are discussed. Simulations, in good agreement with the experimental data, show that most of the energy gain occurs in the first half of the undulator at a gradient of 70  MeV/m and that the structure in the measured energy spectrum arises because of higher harmonic IFEL interaction in the second half of the undulator.

We examine the use of sextupole magnets to correct nonlinearities in the longitudinal phase space transformation of a relativistic beam of charged particles in a dispersionless translating section, or dogleg. Through heuristic analytical arguments and examples derived from recent experimental efforts, augmented by simulations using the particle tracking codes PARMELA and ELEGANT, sextupole corrections are found to be effective in optimizing the use of such structures for beam compression or for shaping the current profile of the beam, by manipulation of the second-order longitudinal dispersion. Recent experimental evidence of the use of sextupoles to manipulate second-order horizontal and longitudinal dispersion of the beam is presented. The theoretical and experimental results indicate that these manipulations can be used to create an electron bunch with a current profile having a long ramp followed by a sharp cutoff, which is optimal for driving large-amplitude wake fields in a plasma wake field accelerator.

Velocity bunching has been recently proposed as a tool for compressing electron beam pulses in modern high brightness photoinjector sources. This tool is familiar from earlier schemes implemented for bunching dc electron sources, but presents peculiar challenges when applied to high current, low emittance beams from photoinjectors. The main difficulty foreseen is control of emittance oscillations in the beam in this scheme, which can be naturally considered as an extension of the emittance compensation process at moderate energies. This paper presents two scenarios in which velocity bunching, combined with emittance control, is to play a role in nascent projects. The first is termed ballistic bunching, where the changing of relative particle velocities and positions occur in distinct regions, a short high gradient linac, and a drift length. This scenario is discussed in the context of the proposed ORION photoinjector. Simulations are used to explore the relationship between the degree of bunching, and the emittance compensation process. Experimental measurements performed at the UCLA Neptune Laboratory of the surprisingly robust bunching process, as well as accompanying deleterious transverse effects, are presented. An unanticipated mechanism for emittance growth in bends for highly momentum chirped beam was identified and studied in these experiments. The second scenario may be designated as phase space rotation, and corresponds closely to the recent proposal of Ferrario and Serafini. Its implementation for the compression of the electron beam pulse length in the PLEIADES inverse Compton scattering (ICS) experiment at LLNL is discussed. It is shown in simulations that optimum compression may be obtained by manipulation of the phases in low gradient traveling wave accelerator sections. Measurements of the bunching and emittance control achieved in such an implementation at PLEIADES, as well as aspects of the use of velocity-bunched beam directly in ICS experiments, are presented.

Commissioning of two large coherent light facilities (XFELs) at SLAC and DESY should begin in 2008 and 2011, respectively. In this paper we look further into the future, hoping to answer, in a very preliminary way, two questions. First: What will the next generation of XFEL facilities look like? Believing that superconducting technology offers advantages such as high quality beams with highly populated bunches, the possibility of energy recovery and higher overall efficiency than warm technology, we focus this preliminary study on the superconducting option. From this belief the second question arises: What modifications in superconducting technology and in the machine design are needed, as compared to the present DESY XFEL, and what kind of research and development program should be proposed to arrive in the next few years at a technically feasible solution with even higher brilliance and increased overall conversion of ac power to photon beam power? In this paper we will very often refer to and profit from the DESY XFEL design, acknowledging its many technically innovative solutions.

The energy loss and gain of a beam in the nonlinear, “blowout” regime of the plasma wakefield accelerator, which features ultrahigh accelerating fields, linear transverse focusing forces, and nonlinear plasma motion, has been asserted, through previous observations in simulations, to scale linearly with beam charge. Additionally, from a recent analysis by Barov et al., it has been concluded that for an infinitesimally short beam, the energy loss is indeed predicted to scale linearly with beam charge for arbitrarily large beam charge. This scaling is predicted to hold despite the onset of a relativistic, nonlinear response by the plasma, when the number of beam particles occupying a cubic plasma skin depth exceeds that of plasma electrons within the same volume. This paper is intended to explore the deviations from linear energy loss using 2D particle-in-cell simulations that arise in the case of experimentally relevant finite length beams. The peak accelerating field in the plasma wave excited behind the finite-length beam is also examined, with the artifact of wave spiking adding to the apparent persistence of linear scaling of the peak field amplitude into the nonlinear regime. At large enough normalized charge, the linear scaling of both decelerating and accelerating fields collapses, with serious consequences for plasma wave excitation efficiency. Using the results of parametric particle-in-cell studies, the implications of these results for observing severe deviations from linear scaling in present and planned experiments are discussed.

We present a detailed comparison of the measured characteristics of Thomson backscattered x rays produced at the Picosecond Laser-Electron Interaction for the Dynamic Evaluation of Structures facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to predicted results from a newly developed, fully three-dimensional time and frequency-domain code. Based on the relativistic differential cross section, this code has the capability to calculate time and space dependent spectra of the x-ray photons produced from linear Thomson scattering for both bandwidth-limited and chirped incident laser pulses. Spectral broadening of the scattered x-ray pulse resulting from the incident laser bandwidth, perpendicular wave vector components in the laser focus, and the transverse and longitudinal phase spaces of the electron beam are included. Electron beam energy, energy spread, and transverse phase space measurements of the electron beam at the interaction point are presented, and the corresponding predicted x-ray characteristics are determined. In addition, time-integrated measurements of the x rays produced from the interaction are presented and shown to agree well with the simulations.

There has been much recent experimental and theoretical interest in the blowout regime of plasma wakefield acceleration, which features ultrahigh accelerating fields, linear transverse focusing forces, and nonlinear plasma motion. A quantitative understanding of the blowout regime including all these effects has, to this point, been available only through detailed simulations. This paper represents an initial step towards an analytical theory of this regime, in which the mechanism of energy loss in the drive beam is investigated. We find, first from examination of electromagnetic particle-in-cell simulations, and then through analytical investigations, that under short pulse, high-charge conditions, the plasma electrons receive a strong initial push along the direction of beam motion. This nonlinear effect is unanticipated by linear theory, where the return current motion is in the opposite direction. In the limit of short pulses (the δ-function limit), the beam energy loss is shown to be linear in charge even with a nonlinear plasma response dominated by relativistic, electromagnetic effects, despite the fact that the initial plasma electron response changes qualitatively from the familiar electrostatic, nonrelativistic limit.

Enhanced energy gain of externally injected electrons by a ∼3  cm long, high-gradient relativistic plasma wave (RPW) is demonstrated. Using a CO₂ laser beat wave of duration longer than the ion motion time across the laser spot size, a laser self-guiding process is initiated in a plasma channel. Guiding compensates for ionization-induced defocusing (IID) creating a longer plasma, which extends the interaction length between electrons and the RPW. In contrast to a maximum energy gain of 10 MeV when IID is dominant, the electrons gain up to 38 MeV energy in a laser-beat-wave-induced plasma channel.

The nonresonant beat-wave excitation of relativistic plasma waves is studied in two-dimensional simulations and experiments. It is shown through simulations that, as opposed to the resonant case, the accelerating electric fields associated with the nonresonant plasmons are always in phase with the beat-pattern of the laser pulse. The excitation of such nonresonant relativistic plasma waves is shown to be possible for plasma densities as high as 14 times the resonant density. The density fluctuations and the fields associated with these waves have significant magnitudes, facts confirmed experimentally using collinear Thomson scattering and electron injection, respectively. The applicability of these results towards eventual phase-locked acceleration of prebunched and externally injected electrons is discussed.

Plasma density transition trapping is a recently proposed self-injection scheme for plasma wakefield accelerators. This technique uses a sharp downward plasma density transition to trap and accelerate background plasma electrons in a plasma wakefield. This paper examines the quality of electron beams captured using this scheme in terms of emittance, energy spread, and brightness. Two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations show that these parameters can be optimized by manipulating the plasma density profile. We also develop, and support with simulations, a set of scaling laws that predicts how the brightness of transition trapping beams scales with the plasma density of the system. These scaling laws indicate that transition trapping can produce beams with brightness ≥5×10¹⁴   A/(mrad)². A proof-of-principle transition trapping experiment is planned for the near future. The proposed experiment is described in detail.