Hosing and sloshing of short-pulse GeV-class wakefield drivers.

This Letter examines the electron-hosing instability in relation to the drivers of current and future plasma-wakefield experiments using fully three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation models. The simulation results are compared to numerical solutions and to asymptotic solutions of the idealized analytic equations. The measured growth rates do not agree with the existing theory and the behavior is shown to depend sensitively on beam length, shape, and charge. We find that even when severe hosing occurs the wake can remain relatively stable.

Plasma-wakefield acceleration of a positron beam.

Plasma-wakefield excitation by positron beams is examined in a regime for which the plasma dynamics are highly nonlinear. Three dimensional particle-in-cell simulations and physical models are presented. In the nonlinear wake regime known as the blowout regime for electrons, positron wakes exhibit an analogous "suck-in" behavior. Although analogous, the two wakefield cases are quite different in terms of their amplitudes, wavelengths, waveforms, transverse profiles, and plasma density dependence. In a homogenous plasma, nonlinear positron wakes are smaller than those of the corresponding electron case. However, hollow channels are shown to enhance the amplitude of the positron wakes.

Compressing and focusing a short laser pulse by a thin plasma lens.

We consider the possibility of using a thin plasma slab as an optical element to both focus and compress an intense laser pulse. By thin we mean that the focal length is larger than the lens thickness. We derive analytic formulas for the spot size and pulse length evolution of a short laser pulse propagating through a thin uniform plasma lens. The formulas are compared to simulation results from two types of particle-in-cell code. The simulations give a greater final spot size and a shorter focal length than the analytic formulas. The difference arises from spherical aberrations in the lens which lead to the generation of higher-order vacuum Gaussian modes. The simulations also show that Raman side scattering can develop. A thin lens experiment could provide unequivocal evidence of relativistic self-focusing.

Simulations of a meter-long plasma wakefield accelerator.

Full-scale particle-in-cell simulations of a meter-long plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA) are presented in two dimensions. The results support the design of a current PWFA experiment in the nonlinear blowout regime where analytic solutions are intractable. A relativistic electron bunch excites a plasma wake that accelerates trailing particles at rates of several hundred MeV/m. A comparison is made of various simulation codes, and a parallel object-oriented code OSIRIS is used to model a full meter of acceleration. Excellent agreement is obtained between the simulations and analytic expressions for the transverse betatron oscillations of the beam. The simulations are used to develop scaling laws for designing future multi-GeV accelerator experiments.