Plasma-Based Particle Accelerators
Sizes of modern accelerators are becoming ever larger because the rate at which a charged particle is accelerated in modern linacs is relatively small. For example, the peak accelerating field at the leading high-energy physics facility, Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC), is only 20 MeV/m. For comparison, plasma-based accelerators, utilize an important property of the plasma to sustain very large longitudinal electric fields (up to 100 Gev/m). To remain synchronous with ultra-relativistic particles we're trying to accelerate, these enormous electric fields have to come in the form of plasma waves which have the phase velocity approaching the speed of light. Plasma waves are typically excited by high-intensity lasers, and form a plasma wake of the laser pulse -- very much like a wake behind a boat traveling on a lake.
Fig.1 Plasma base particle accelerator simulation
Click on the icon below to download PBPA simulation movie
(2.5MB, avi file)
If the promise of the plasma-based acceleration is ever fulfilled, you can have your own private SLAC in your backyard! But to accomplish that, we have to learn how to excite these fantastic electric fields using high-intensity femtosecond laser pulses, and how to guide these pulses using plasma channels.
