An improved electron beam dynamics design for laboratory plasma-astrophysical studies: a technical note

TL;DR

This paper presents an upgraded accelerator beamline design that produces high-density, quasi-continuous electron beams for laboratory plasma-astrophysical studies, enabling better simulation of astrophysical phenomena.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel magnetic focusing system and collimator setup that significantly enhances electron beam density and stability for plasma-astrophysical experiments.

Findings

Three orders higher electron density at plasma entrance

Successful application in nonlinear plasma-astrophysical simulations

Beam dynamics simulation results validate the design improvements

Abstract

A technical note is given regarding our previous laboratory plasma-astrophysical studies [C.-S. Jao et al., High Energy Density Physics 32, 31-43 (2019) and Y. Chen et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. A 903, 119 (2018)]. In this note, an upgraded accelerator beamline design is proposed based on a feasible experimental setup in a realistic laboratory environment. The improved design aims to provide milliampere (mA) mega-electron-volt (MeV) quasi-continuous (cw) electron beams for plasma-astrophysical applications. Such a design utilizes a so-called mixed-guiding-field magnetic system right after the cut disk structure (CDS) booster cavity to provide a periodic longitudinal focusing field. The transportation of the produced cw beam with large energy spread to the plasma cell location is improved. The magnetic field serves as well as a seeding field in the plasma environment for the growth of electromagnetic instabilities. In conjunction with the appliance of a circular collimator at the exit of the CDS, the new design allows production of quasi-cw beams with a three orders higher number density at the entrance of the plasma cell compared to the previous design for a seeding magnetic field of about 50 mT while the locally enhanced electric field at the cathode is up to 8 GV/m. The associated beam dynamics simulation results are presented. As proof of principle studies, the produced electron beams are applied in nonlinear plasma-astrophysical simulations for exploring the growth of the instabilities. The extracted parameters and/or distributions from the generated electron beams in the laboratory environment are used in these particle-in-cell simulations. The obtained results are presented and discussed.