Laser-driven high-quality positron sources as possible injectors for plasma-based accelerators
Abstract
The intrinsic constraints in the amplitude of the accelerating fields sustainable by radio-frequency accelerators demand for the pursuit of alternative and more compact acceleration schemes. Among these, plasma-based accelerators are arguably the most promising, thanks to the high-accelerating fields they can sustain, greatly exceeding the GeV/m. While plasma-based acceleration of electrons is now sufficiently mature for systematic studies in this direction, positron acceleration is still at its infancy, with limited projects currently undergoing to provide a viable test facility for further experiments. In this article, we propose a recently demonstrated laser-driven configuration as a relatively compact and inexpensive source of high-quality ultra-relativistic positrons for laser-driven and particle-driven plasma wakefield acceleration studies. Monte-Carlo simulations show that near-term high-intensity laser facilities can produce positron beams with high-current, femtosecond-scale duration, and sufficiently low normalised emittance at energies in the GeV range to be injected in further acceleration stages.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1806.02633,
title = {Laser-driven high-quality positron sources as possible injectors for plasma-based accelerators},
author = {Aaron Alejo and Roman Walczak and Gianluca Sarri},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.02633},
year = {2018}
}