Terawatt attosecond X-ray source driven by a plasma accelerator

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel plasma accelerator-based X-ray source capable of producing ultra-bright, coherent, tunable soft X-ray pulses with attosecond durations and terawatt peak power, surpassing current XFEL capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces a new method for generating high-power, ultrashort X-ray pulses using plasma wakefield accelerators with coherent emission from pre-bunched electron beams.

Findings

Achieved TW peak power soft X-ray pulses with tens of attoseconds duration.

Produced more powerful, shorter, and more stable X-ray pulses than current XFELs.

Utilized coherent radiation from pre-bunched electron beams to relax traditional accelerator tolerances.

Abstract

Plasma accelerators can generate ultra high brightness electron beams which open the door to light sources with smaller physical footprint and properties un-achievable with conventional accelerator technology. In this paper we show that electron beams from Plasma WakeField Accelerators (PWFAs) can generate few-cycle coherent tunable soft X-ray pulses with TW peak power and a duration of tens of attoseconds, an order of magnitude more powerful, shorter and with better stability than state-of-the-art X-ray Free Electron Lasers (XFELs). Such a light source would significantly enhance the ability to experimentally investigate electron dynamics on ultrafast timescales, having broad-ranging impact across multiple scientific fields. Rather than starting from noise as in typical XFELs, the X-rays emission in this approach is driven by coherent radiation from a pre-bunched, near Mega Ampere (MA) current electron beam of attosecond duration. This relaxes the restrictive tolerances which have hindered progress towards utilizing plasma accelerators as coherent X-ray drivers thus far, presenting a new paradigm for advanced-accelerator light source applications.