Excitation of strongly nonlinear plasma wakefield by electron bunches

TL;DR

This paper introduces an analytical method to describe the excitation of strongly nonlinear plasma wakefields by electron bunches, enabling calculation of bubble shape and electric field distribution based solely on driver properties.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel analytical approach for modeling nonlinear plasma wakefields, verified by simulations, and provides scaling laws for accelerator parameters.

Findings

Analytical model accurately predicts bubble shape and fields.

Good agreement between analytical results and particle-in-cell simulations.

Derived scaling laws relate bunch charge and length to wakefield properties.

Abstract

We propose a new method for analytical self-consistent description of the excitation of a strongly nonlinear wakefield (a bubble) excited by an electron bunch. This method makes it possible to calculate the shape of the bubble and the distribution of the electric field in it based only on the properties of the driver, without relying on any additional parameters. The analytical results are verified by particle-in-cell simulations and show good correspondence. A complete analytical solution for cylindrical drivers and scaling laws for the properties of the bubble and other plasma accelerator parameters depending on the bunch charge and length are derived.