Preliminary Study for an RF photocathode based electron injector for awake project

TL;DR

This paper investigates the feasibility of using an RF photocathode electron source, adapted from CERN's PHIN photo-injector, for proton-driven plasma wakefield acceleration in the AWAKE project, supported by preliminary simulations.

Contribution

It presents modifications and beam dynamics simulations of an RF photocathode source tailored for the AWAKE PDPWA experiment, a novel approach for electron injection.

Findings

Feasibility of RF photocathode source for AWAKE

Preliminary beam dynamics simulations support design viability

Potential for efficient electron acceleration up to 1 GeV

Abstract

AWAKE project, a proton driven plasma wakefield acceleration (PDPWA) experiment is approved by CERN. The PDPWA scheme consists of a seeding laser, a drive beam to establish the accelerating wakefields within the plasma cell; and a witness beam to be accelerated. The drive beam protons will be provided by the CERN's Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). The plasma ionisation will be performed by a seeding laser and the drive beam protons to produce the accelerating wakefields. After establishing the wakefields, witness beam, namely, electron beam from a dedicated source should be injected into the plasma cell. The primary goal of this experiment is to demonstrate acceleration of a 5-15$\,$MeV single bunch electron beam up to 1$\,$GeV in a 10$\,$m of plasma. This paper explores the possibility of an RF photocathode as the electron source for this PDPWA scheme based on the existing PHIN photo-injector at CERN. The modifications to the existing design, preliminary beam dynamics simulations in order to provide the required electron beam are presented in this paper.