Driver-delay chicanes for a multistage plasma-based accelerator facility

TL;DR

This paper presents a method for achieving a 2 nanosecond delay in a 12-meter setup to synchronize plasma accelerator drivers, crucial for multi-stage plasma-based accelerator facilities used in advanced physics experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel driver-delay chicane design that maintains beam parameters while providing precise temporal synchronization for multi-stage plasma accelerators.

Findings

Achieved 2 ns delay in approximately 12 meters

Maintained first-order beam parameter periodicity

Enabling synchronized multi-stage plasma acceleration

Abstract

The SPARTA project aims to design a medium-sized accelerator facility that facilitates new experiments in strong-field quantum electrodynamics using plasma-based accelerators. For this, we need several plasma stages and, therefore, several drivers. Drivers can be either an ultra-relativistic charged particle beam or a high-intensity laser beam. In case we use particle beams, we need a method of distributing these beams from a radio-frequency accelerator to the different plasma stages. A central part of this is a delay scheme that ensures temporal synchronization of the drivers. In this paper, we demonstrate how to achieve a 2 ns delay in $\sim$12 m, while keeping the first-order beam parameters periodic.