Generating monoenergetic heavy-ion bunches with laser-induced electrostatic shocks.

A method for efficient laser acceleration of heavy ions by electrostatic shock is investigated using particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation and analytical modeling. When a small number of heavy ions are mixed with light ions, the heavy ions can be accelerated to the same velocity as the light ions so that they gain much higher energy because of their large mass. Accordingly, a sandwich target design with a thin compound ion layer between two light-ion layers and a micro-structured target design are proposed for obtaining monoenergetic heavy-ion beams.

Second-harmonic generation of electron-bernstein waves in an inhomogeneous plasma.

In the injection of electron-Bernstein waves (EBW) into a plasma, proposed for plasma heating and current drive in over-dense plasma, conversion of the fundamental to its second harmonic is predicted analytically and observed in computations. The mechanism is traced to the existence of locations where one can have both wave number and frequency matching between the fundamental and its harmonic. Further, at such locations, the second harmonic commonly has minimal group velocity, and this allows the amplitude of the second harmonic to build to values exceeding that of the fundamental at power levels less than anticipated in experiments. The second-harmonic power can then be deposited at half-harmonic resonances of the original wave, often far from the desired location of energy deposition. Estimates for the power at which this is significant are given.

Laser-driven coherent betatron oscillation in a laser-wakefield cavity.

The origin of beam disparity in emittance and betatron oscillation orbits, in and out of the polarization plane of the drive laser of laser-plasma accelerators, is explained in terms of betatron oscillations driven by the laser field. As trapped electrons accelerate, they move forward and interact with the laser pulse. For the bubble regime, a simple model is presented to describe this interaction in terms of a harmonic oscillator with a driving force from the laser and a restoring force from the plasma wake field. The resulting beam oscillations in the polarization plane, with period approximately the wavelength of the driving laser, increase emittance in that plane and cause microbunching of the beam. These effects are observed directly in 3D particle-in-cell simulations.

Wave excitation in inhomogeneous dielectric media.

The equation describing the propagation of a mode driven by external currents in an inhomogeneous dielectric is derived from the principle of the conservation of wave energy density and wave momentum density. The wave amplitude in steady state is obtained in terms of a simple spatial integration of the driving current. The contribution from the spatial derivative of the dielectric response is found to be important. The analytical predictions are verified through comparison with deltaf particle-in-cell computations of electron Bernstein wave propagation, thus showing applicability to kinetic systems.

Longitudinal cooling of non-neutral plasma by energy exchange.

The optimal values of Q and Deltaomega (Deltaomega identical withomega-Omega) for cooling a pure electron plasma with a microwave bath have been calculated. An electron plasma, which has no internal degree of freedom, cannot be cooled below the temperature of a heat bath. However, longitudinal cooling can be achieved by energy transfer from the poorly cooled longitudinal degree of freedom to the well-cooled (by synchrotron radiation) transverse degree of freedom. To do this, a microwave bath is introduced to the electron plasma. A microwave tuned to a frequency below the gyrofrequency forces electrons moving towards the microwave to absorb a microwave photon. The electrons move up one in Landau state and then lose their longitudinal momenta. In this process, the longitudinal temperature of the electron plasma decreases. On the basis that the perpendicular temperature is below the Landau temperature of the plasma, we set up two level transition equations and then derive a Fokker-Planck equation from them. With the aid of a finite element method (FEM) code for the equation, the cooling times for several values of the magnetic field, the microwave cavity (Q), and the relative detuning frequency from the gyrofrequency (Deltaomega) are calculated. Thus optimal values of the microwave cavity and the detuning frequency for longitudinal cooling of a strongly magnetized electron plasma with a microwave bath have been found. By applying these optimal values with an appropriate microwave intensity, the best cooling can be obtained. For an electron plasma magnetized to 10 T, the cooling time to the solid state is approximately two hours.

Finding a nonlinear lattice with improved integrability using Lie transform perturbation theory.

A condition for improved dynamic aperture for nonlinear, alternating gradient transport systems is derived using Lie transform perturbation theory. The Lie transform perturbation method is used here to perform averaging over fast oscillations by canonically transforming to slowly oscillating variables. This is first demonstrated for a linear sinusoidal focusing system. This method is then employed to average the dynamics over a lattice period for a nonlinear focusing system, provided by the use of higher order poles such as sextupoles and octupoles along with alternate gradient quadrupoles. Unlike the traditional approach, the higher order focusing is not treated as a perturbation. The Lie transform method is particularly advantageous for such a system where the form of the Hamiltonian is complex. This is because the method exploits the property of canonical invariance of Poisson brackets so that the change of variables is accomplished by just replacing the old ones with the new. The analysis shows the existence of a condition in which the system is azimuthally symmetric in the transformed, slowly oscillating frame. Such a symmetry in the time averaged frame renders the system nearly integrable in the laboratory frame. This condition leads to reduced chaos and improved confinement when compared to a system that is not close to integrability. Numerical calculations of single-particle trajectories and phase space projections of the dynamic aperture performed for a lattice with quadrupoles and sextupoles confirm that this is indeed the case.