Enhanced betatron radiation by steering a low-energy-spread electron beam in a deflected laser-driven plasma wiggler
Abstract
Laser wakefield accelerators (LWFA) hold great potential to produce high-quality high-energy electron beams (e beams) and simultaneously bright x-ray sources via betatron radiation, which are very promising for pump-probe study in ultrafast science. However, in order to obtain a high-quality e beam, electron injection and acceleration should be carefully manipulated, where a large oscillation amplitude has to be avoided and thus the emitted x-ray yield is limited. Here, we report a new scheme to experimentally enhance betatron radiation significantly both in photon yield and photon energy by separating electron injection and acceleration from manipulation of the e-beam transverse oscillation in the wake via introducing a slanted thin plasma refraction slab. Particle-in-cell simulations indicate that the e-beam transverse oscillation amplitude can be increased by more than 10 folds, after being steered into the deflected laser-driven wakefield due to refraction at the slab's boundaries. Spectral broadening of the x-rays can be suppressed owing to the small variation in the peak energy of the low-energy-spread e beam in a plasma wiggler regime. We demonstrate that the high-quality e-beam generation, refracting and wiggling can act as a whole to realize the concurrence of monoenergetic e beam and bright x-rays in a compact LWFA.
- Publication:
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arXiv e-prints
- Pub Date:
- June 2017
- DOI:
- 10.48550/arXiv.1706.01033
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1706.01033
- Bibcode:
- 2017arXiv170601033Y
- Keywords:
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- Physics - Plasma Physics
- E-Print:
- Appl. Phys. Lett. 112, 133503 (2018)