Multistage Coupling of Laser-Wakefield Accelerators with Curved Plasma Channel

TL;DR

This paper proposes a compact, efficient multistage laser-wakefield acceleration scheme using a curved plasma channel to simultaneously guide the laser pulse and electron beam, improving coupling efficiency and beam quality.

Contribution

It introduces a novel curved plasma channel design for multistage laser-wakefield acceleration, enabling simultaneous guiding of laser pulses and electron beams with enhanced efficiency.

Findings

Efficient injection of electron beams into subsequent acceleration stages.

High beam stability and quality maintained during multistage acceleration.

Reduced coupling distance compared to traditional methods.

Abstract

Multistage coupling of laser-wakefield accelerators is essential to overcome laser energy depletion for high-energy applications such as TeV level electron-positron colliders. Current staging schemes feed subsequent laser pulses into stages using plasma mirrors, while controlling electron beam focusing with plasma lenses. Here a more compact and efficient scheme is proposed to realize simultaneous coupling of the electron beam and the laser pulse into a second stage. A curved channel with transition segment is used to guide a fresh laser pulse into a subsequent straight channel, while allowing the electrons to propagate in a straight channel. This scheme benefits from a shorter coupling distance and continuous guiding of the electrons in plasma, while suppressing transverse beam dispersion. With moderate laser parameters, particle-in-cell simulations demonstrate that the electron beam from a previous stage can be efficiently injected into a subsequent stage for further acceleration, while maintaining high capture efficiency, stability, and beam quality.