An overview is given of the physics issues relevant to the plasma wakefield accelerator, the plasma beat-wave accelerator, the laser wakefield accelerator, including the self-modulated regime, and wakefield accelerators driven by multiple electron or laser pulses. Basic properties of linear and nonlinear plasma waves are discussed, as well as the trapping and acceleration of electrons in the plasma wave. Formulas are presented for the accelerating field and the energy gain in the various accelerator configurations. The propagation of the drive electron or laser beams is discussed, including limitations imposed by key instabilities and methods for optically guiding laser pulses. Recent experimental results are summarized.

Overview of plasma-based accelerator concepts

To develop plasma wakefield acceleration into a compact and affordable replacement for conventional accelerators, beams of charged particles must be accelerated at high efficiency in a high electric field; here this is demonstrated for a bunch of charged electrons ‘surfing’ on a previously excited plasma wave. Particle colliders that operate at the high-energy frontier using electric fields generated by radio waves are approaching the limits of feasibility in terms of size and cost, but there are other acceleration techniques that could make less expensive and more compact devices. The plasma wakefield accelerator, in which an electron bunch is accelerated by making it 'surf' on a plasma wave excited by another electron bunch, promises an energy gain in the gigaelectron-volt regime over just a few centimetres — an energy gain that requires hundreds of metres using traditional accelerators. Previously, this technique had only been used to accelerate a very small number of electrons at a time. Now, researchers working at FACET, the Facility for Advanced Accelerator Experimental Tests at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, USA, have achieved acceleration of about half a billion electrons at once with an unprecedented efficiency for a plasma accelerator. This achievement could be a milestone in the development of affordable and compact accelerators for applications ranging from high energy physics to medical and industrial applications. High-efficiency acceleration of charged particle beams at high gradients of energy gain per unit length is necessary to achieve an affordable and compact high-energy collider. The plasma wakefield accelerator is one concept1,2,3 being developed for this purpose. In plasma wakefield acceleration, a charge-density wake with high accelerating fields is driven by the passage of an ultra-relativistic bunch of charged particles (the drive bunch) through a plasma4,5,6. If a second bunch of relativistic electrons (the trailing bunch) with sufficient charge follows in the wake of the drive bunch at an appropriate distance, it can be efficiently accelerated to high energy. Previous experiments using just a single 42-gigaelectronvolt drive bunch have accelerated electrons with a continuous energy spectrum and a maximum energy of up to 85 gigaelectronvolts from the tail of the same bunch in less than a metre of plasma7. However, the total charge of these accelerated electrons was insufficient to extract a substantial amount of energy from the wake. Here we report high-efficiency acceleration of a discrete trailing bunch of electrons that contains sufficient charge to extract a substantial amount of energy from the high-gradient, nonlinear plasma wakefield accelerator. Specifically, we show the acceleration of about 74 picocoulombs of charge contained in the core of the trailing bunch in an accelerating gradient of about 4.4 gigavolts per metre. These core particles gain about 1.6 gigaelectronvolts of energy per particle, with a final energy spread as low as 0.7 per cent (2.0 per cent on average), and an energy-transfer efficiency from the wake to the bunch that can exceed 30 per cent (17.7 per cent on average). This acceleration of a distinct bunch of electrons containing a substantial charge and having a small energy spread with both a high accelerating gradient and a high energy-transfer efficiency represents a milestone in the development of plasma wakefield acceleration into a compact and affordable accelerator technology.

High-efficiency acceleration of an electron beam in a plasma wakefield accelerator

Higgs Boson Theory and Phenomenology

Naturalness bounds on weak scale supersymmetry in the context of radiative breaking of the electroweak symmetry are analyzed. In the case of minimal supergravity it is found that for low $\mathrm{tan}\ensuremath{\beta}$ and for low values of fine-tuning $\ensuremath{\Phi},$ where $\ensuremath{\Phi}$ is defined essentially by the ratio ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{2}{/M}_{Z}^{2}$ where $\ensuremath{\mu}$ is the Higgs mixing parameter and ${M}_{Z}$ is the $Z$ boson mass, the allowed values of the universal scalar parameter ${m}_{0},$ and the universal gaugino mass ${m}_{1/2}$ lie on the surface of an ellipsoid with radii fixed by $\ensuremath{\Phi}$ leading to tightly constrained upper bounds $\ensuremath{\sim}\sqrt{\ensuremath{\Phi}}.$ Thus for $\mathrm{tan}\ensuremath{\beta}l~2(l~5)$ it is found that the upper limits for the entire set of sparticle masses lie in the range $l700 \mathrm{GeV} (l1.5 \mathrm{TeV})$ for any reasonable range of fine-tuning $(\ensuremath{\Phi}l~20).$ However, it is found that there exist regions of the parameter space where the fine-tuning does not tightly constrain ${m}_{0}$ and ${m}_{1/2}.$ Effects of nonuniversalities in the Higgs boson sector and in the third generation sector on naturalness bounds are also analyzed and it is found that nonuniversalities can significantly affect the upper bounds. It is also found that achieving the maximum Higgs boson mass allowed in supergravity unified models requires a high degree of fine-tuning. Thus a heavy sparticle spectrum is indicated if the Higgs boson mass exceeds 120 GeV. The prospect for the discovery of supersymmetry at the Fermilab Tevatron and at the CERN LHC in view of these results is discussed.

https://repository.library.northeastern.edu/files/neu:331876/fulltext.pdf

Naturalness, weak scale supersymmetry, and the prospect for the observation of supersymmetry at the Fermilab Tevatron and at the CERN LHC

High‐energy accelerators have been physicists’ main tools for exploring the building blocks of matter for more than 60 years. During this time the particle energy has increased exponentially as a result of a combination of improvements in existing machines and the invention of new acceleration techniques. Historically, whenever a given type of accelerator has reached the limit of its performance, an innovative idea for particle manipulation, storage, cooling or acceleration has made possible experiments at ever higher energies. The tremendous increase in the energy of accelerators has not, however, been without an increase in capital costs. The cancellation of the Superconducting Super Collider makes timely an examination of possible alternative concepts for investigating some of the same physics.

Advanced accelerator concepts

Over the past few years, several schemes for *. making significant increases in the energy of the SLAC beam have been proposed. Two of the proposals, namely the use of superconducting accelerating sections1 and recirculation 1 of the beam for a second pass through the existing acceler. &or,’ have been abandoned for technical and economic reasons after extensive investigation. An on-going method of gradually raising the beam energy is the development and installation of 30and 40-MW klystrons by the SLAC Klystron Group. It is clear, however, that the accelerator would have to be completely refitted with klystrons producing about 100 MW in order that the present machine energy be approximate1 doubled. While such an approach is not inconceivable, 3 the realization of such klystrons and the modulators needed to drive them would require further years of development and a high initial capital investment.

/pdf/sled-a-method-of-doubling-slac-s-energy-3nm26601o9.pdf

SLED: A Method of Doubling SLAC's Energy

/pdf/a-plasma-wake-field-accelerator-3mwbntc9x7.pdf

A plasma wake field accelerator

In the Voss-Weiland scheme of wake field acceleration a high current, ring-shaped driving bunch is used to accelerate a low current beam following along on axis. In such a structure, the transformer ratio, i.e. the ratio of the maximum voltage that can be gained by the on-axis beam and the voltage lost by the driving beam, can be large. In contrast, it has been observed that for an arrangement in which driving and driven bunches follow the same path, and where the current distribution of both bunches is gaussian, the transformer ratio is not normally greater than two. This paper explores some of the possibilities and limitations of a collinear acceleration scheme. In addition to its application to wake field acceleration in structures, this study is also of interest for the understanding of the plasma wake field accelerator.

/pdf/on-collinear-wake-field-acceleration-1ndstogais.pdf

On Collinear Wake Field Acceleration

The transfer of energy from the driving beam to the trailing beam in the plasma wake-field accelerator is studied in computer simulations. We show that with an asymmetric current distribution in the driving bunch, trailing particles can gain energies up to ${(1+k_{p}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}{Z}^{2})}^{\frac{1}{2}}\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\gamma}m{c}^{2}$, where $Z$ is the bunch length and $\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\gamma}m{c}^{2}$ the average energy loss of driving electrons. Because of the relative phase slippage and the two-stream instability, the process of energy gain degrades before the driving beam loses all of its energy; however, even for ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{i}=150$, $\frac{\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\gamma}}{{\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{i}}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}70%$, with an energy gain \ensuremath{\sim} 1 GeV. Transverse effects are briefly discussed.

/pdf/energy-transfer-in-the-plasma-wake-field-accelerator-zahd7z0nsi.pdf

Energy transfer in the plasma wake-field accelerator.

In the SLED method of RF pulse compression, two high Q resonators store energy from an RF source for a relatively long time interval (typically 3 to 5 {mu}sec). Triggered by a reversal in RF phase, this stored energy is then released during a much shorter interval equal to the filling time of the accelerating structure. A peak power gain on the order of three and a compression efficiency on the order of 60% are typically attained. The shape of the output pulse is, however, a sharply decaying exponential. In SLED-II the two cavities are replaced by two lengths of resonant line, forming a Resonant Line SLED (RELS) and resulting in a flat output pulse. Therefore, RELS stages can be cascaded to give a greater peak power gain. Using two stages, a peak power gain greater than ten can be achieved with a reasonable compression efficiency. Unlike the BEC, the RELS compression factor per stage is not limited to two, albeit at the expense of intrinsic efficiency. Like the BEC, it uses long lines rather than short cavities.

Perry B. Wilson

Papers

SLED: A Method of Doubling SLAC's Energy

A plasma wake field accelerator

On Collinear Wake Field Acceleration

Energy transfer in the plasma wake-field accelerator.

SLED II: A new method of rf pulse compression