Proton-driven plasma-wakefield acceleration
Author: ["Allen Caldwell","Konstantin Lotov","Alexander Pukhov","Frank Simon"]
Publication: Nature Physics
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Abstract
Plasmas excited by laser beams or bunches of relativistic electrons have been used to produce electric fields of 10–100 GV m−1. This has opened up the possibility of building compact particle accelerators at the gigaelectronvolt scale. However, it is not obvious how to scale these approaches to the energy frontier of particle physics—the teraelectronvolt regime. Here, we introduce the possibility of proton-bunch-driven plasma-wakefield acceleration, and demonstrate through numerical simulations that this energy regime could be reached in a single accelerating stage. The extreme fields generated when a high-intensity laser or relativistic electron passes through a plasma offer the potential to accelerate particles over shorter distances than is possible with conventional accelerators. A new study suggests that driving a plasma with protons rather than electrons could be the key to generating TeV electron beams by this process.
Cite this article
Caldwell, A., Lotov, K., Pukhov, A. et al. Proton-driven plasma-wakefield acceleration. Nature Phys 5, 363–367 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1248
