Energy Loss of a High Charge Bunched Electron Beam in Plasma:. Analysis

There has been much experimental and theoretical interest in blowout regime of plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA), which features ultra-high accelerating fields, linear transverse focusing forces, and nonlinear plasma motion. Using an exact analysis, we examine here a fundamental limit of nonlinear PWFA excitation, by an infinitesimally short, relativistic electron beam. The beam energy loss in this case is shown to be linear in charge even for nonlinear plasma response, where a normalized, unitless charge exceeds unity, and relativistic plasma effects become important or dominant. The physical bases for this persistence of linear response are pointed out.