Plasma-Wakefield Accelerator Group

Abstract:

We demonstrate experimentally the resonant excitation of plasma waves by trains of laser pulses. We also take an important first step to achieving an energy recovery plasma accelerator by showing that a plasma wave can be damped by an out-of-resonance trailing laser pulse. The measured laser wakefields are found to be in excellent agreement with analytical and numerical models of wakefield excitation in the linear regime. Our results indicate a promising direction for achieving highly controlled, GeV-scale laser-plasma accelerators operating at multikilohertz repetition rates.

Abstract:

FLASHForward is a beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration facility, currently under construction at DESY (Hamburg, Germany), aiming at the stable generation of electron beams of several GeV with small energy spread and emittance. High-quality 1 GeV-class electron beams from the free-electron laser FLASH will act as the wake driver. The setup will allow studies of external injection as well as density-downramp injection. With a triangular-shaped driver beam electron energies of up to 5 GeV from a few centimeters of plasma can be anticipated. Particle-In-Cell simulations are used to assess the feasibility of each technique and to predict properties of the accelerated electron bunches. In this contribution the current status of FLASHForward, along with recent experimental developments and upcoming scientific plans, will be reviewed.