Oscillation damper for misaligned witness in plasma wakefield accelerator

TL;DR

This paper proposes an oscillation damper mechanism for plasma wakefield accelerators that uses a pre-placed particle bunch to correct witness misalignments, enhancing beam stability without quality loss.

Contribution

It introduces a novel damper technique employing a pre-placed particle bunch to improve witness alignment tolerance in plasma wakefield accelerators.

Findings

Damper effectively corrects witness misalignment.

Alignment tolerances are significantly relaxed.

No loss in beam quality observed.

Abstract

If a laser- or particle beam-driven plasma wakefield accelerator operates in the linear or moderately nonlinear regime, injecting an externally produced particle bunch (witness) to be accelerated may encounter an alignment problem. Witness alignment tolerances can be relaxed by using a damper, an additional particle bunch produced by the same injector and propagating at a submillimeter distance ahead of the witness. If misaligned, the damper perturbs the wakefield in such a way that the witness shifts on-axis with no quality loss.