Controlled collective acceleration of electron-ion bunches

The fundamental possibility of a new method for controlled collective ion acceleration by electron bunches of high-current relativistic picosecond beams has been proved. Dense relativistically rotating electron bunches are formed using a cusp magnetic system by their capture in a special magnetic trap. An electron bunch is filled with ions when it interacts with a preliminarily prepared plasma bunch with a certain density. Then, the effective potential well of the magnetic trap is stepwise shifted synchronously with the motion of ions by means of a system of turns with controlled currents. This ensures the displacement and confinement of electrons in the direction of acceleration. The shift of the center of the well at each step is chosen such that ions are in the region of acceleration by a high self electric field of the electron bunch. In contrast to the known methods for collective acceleration, the proposed method makes it possible to avoid the mismatch of the electron and ion components of bunches, disruption of the acceleration of ions, and development of numerous instabilities, because the duration of the acceleration cycle is in the nanosecond range.     

Analysis of the diamagnetic effect in multipole Galatea traps

The toroidal current emerging after the injection of a plasmoid through the magnetic shell of the Trimyx-3M (microwave) multipole trap is measured using the Rogowski loop. This current is due to diamagnetism of the plasma. The relation between the diamagnetic current and the maximal plasma pressure produced at the magnetic field separatrix is obtained. It is shown hence that magnetic measurements in a multi-pole trap for a known concentration make it possible to determine the plasma temperature in the trap and the energy confinement time.     

Effect of the ponderomotive scattering and injection position on electron-bunch injection into a laser wakefield

For the purpose of laser wakefield acceleration, it turns out that the injection of electron bunches longer than the plasma wavelength can also generate accelerated femtosecond bunches with a relatively low energy spread. This is of great interest because such injecting bunches can be provided, e.g., by photo cathode rf linacs. Here we show that when an e-bunch is injected into the wakefield, it is important to take into account the interaction of the injected bunch with the laser pulse in the vacuum region located in front of the plasma. We show that at low energies of the injected bunch, this leads to ponderomotive scattering of the bunch and results in a significant drop of the collection efficiency. For certain injection energies the ponderomotive scattering may result in a smaller energy spread in the accelerated bunch. It is found that the injection position in the laser wakefield plays an important role. Higher collection efficiency can be obtained for certain injection energies, when the bunch is injected in plasma at some distance from the laser pulse; the energy spread, however, is typically larger in this case. We also estimate the minimum trapping energy for the injected electrons and the length of the trapped bunch. PACS 52.38.Kd; 41.75.Jv; 41.85.Ar     

强激光产生的强磁场及其对弓激波的影响

强激光照射金属线圈后,会在打靶点附近的背景等离子体中诱发冷电子的回流,在金属丝内形成强电流源,从而产生强磁场.本文利用神光II高功率激光器产生的强激光照射金属丝靶,产生了围绕金属丝的环形强磁场.利用B-dot对局域磁感应强度进行了测量,根据测量结果,结合三维模拟程序,反演得到磁场的空间分布.再利用强激光与CH平面靶相互作用产生的超音速等离子体撞击该金属丝,产生了弓激波.通过光学成像手段研究了磁场对冲击波的影响,发现磁场使得弓激波的轮廓变得不明显并且张角变大.同时,通过实验室天体物理定标率,将金属丝表面等离子参数变换到相应的天体参数中,结果证明利用该实验方法可以在实验室中产生类似太阳风的磁化等离子体.     

Experimental evidence of high-beta plasma confinement in an axially symmetric gas dynamic trap

In the axially symmetric magnetic mirror device gas dynamic trap (GDT), on-axis transverse beta (ratio of the transverse plasma pressure to magnetic field pressure) exceeding 0.4 in the fast ion turning points has been first achieved. The plasma has been heated by injection of neutral beams, which at the same time produced anisotropic fast ions. Neither enhanced losses of the plasma nor anomalies in the fast ion scattering and slowing down were observed. This observation confirms predicted magnetohydrodynamic stability of plasma in the axially symmetric mirror devices with average min-B, like the GDT is. The measured beta value is rather close to that expected in different versions of the GDT based 14 MeV neutron source for fusion materials testing.     

Magnetic trap for confining a hot plasma

The magnetic field of a two-helix Tornado trap has all the properties needed to efficiently confine a hot plasma. However, its practical utilization has been restricted because of the ponderomotive interaction between the turns of the helices, which disrupts the structure of the magnetic field. A modification of a Tornado trap, which permits significant reduction of the ponderomotive interaction is considered, and arguments in favor of using a magnetic field to maintain the properties of the field in an unmodified trap are presented. Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 67, 25–28 (September 1997)     

高能等离子体入射对磁场膨胀影响的模拟研究（已撤稿）

采用三维模型，使用混合网格质点法对等离子体入射偶极子磁场产生的磁场膨胀进行数值模拟.在模拟中考虑了高能等离子体注入两种不同类型磁场的情况：等离子体注入没有背景磁场的偶极子磁场和等离子体注入有背景磁场的偶极子磁场.研究表明背景磁场的存在不仅改变了粒子的分布，还改变了磁场膨胀的程度.还研究了注入的高能等离子体的速度对磁场膨胀的影响，结果表明入射的高能等离子体速度越大，磁场膨胀的程度就越大.对于低的入射速度，入射粒子在偶极子磁场中的回旋半径与偶极子磁场的特征长度相比较小，粒子被磁场束缚，对偶极子磁场的影响可以忽 关键词： 网格质点法 磁场膨胀 偶极子磁场     

Parametric excitation of oscillations of charged particle bunches in a Penning trap

A self-similar solution is obtained for the self-consistent hydrodynamic equations describing the motion of an ellipsoid of charged particles in a Penning trap and in an rf trap. The conditions are determined for which a small periodic variation of the confining magnetic field in the Penning trap drives oscillations of the bunch. Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 67, 27–29 (January 1997)     

Independent UHF plasma source and possibility of filling open magnetic trap

A stationary UHF plasma source, its characteristics and possibility of filling open magnetic trap with plasma injected from it have been described. Plasma is created in the source at frequency of 2400 MHz (supplied power is up to 150 W) in the electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) regime under working gas pressure 10^–5–10^–2 Torr. By changing discharge conditions one can change the injected plasma density from 10⁹ to 10¹² cm^–3, at the temperatureT _e=2–10 eV. The possibility of efficient plasma injection from the source into the open magnetic trap of various configurations is shown experimentally. Plasma characteristics in the trap are presented under various experimental conditions. It is established that plasma parameters can be easily changed in the trap.     

Research of multipole magnetic trap-galatea “Trimyx”

The experimental unit “Galatea-3” is briefly described. It consists of the coaxial plasma gun, the plasma guide and the trap-galatea “Trimyx” with three myxine. The parameters of plasma bunch in the plasma guide and in the trap are presented. It is shown, that plasma can be efficiently entrapped by the trap and spread out along it.Therewith the cross-section dimensions of the confined plasma configuration are found to go beyond the Ohkawa surfaces. Estimations show that the particles losses from the trap are on the order of the classic ones.     

Experiments to study the confinement of a target plasma in a magnetic trap with inverse plugs and circular multipole walls

In order to neutralize beams of high-energy negative ions, it is convenient to use a plasma target. It is necessary to confine a target plasma within a magnetic trap. It is of importance to restrict the escape of a plasma from the inlet and outlet holes in the target. It is proposed to confine a target plasma in a magnetic trap with a weak longitudinal field with circular multipole walls and with inverse plugs (with an inverse field). Experiments in which a plasma is confined in an axisymmetric trap of this type with one double inverse plug, which restricts longitudinal plasma outflow, are described. A cathode pellet emitting accelerated electrons for plasma production by gas ionization is installed at the opposite end face of the trap on the axis. The experiment shows that inverse plugs suppress strongly the plasma outflow into the end-face hole. The mechanism of this suppression is revealed. It is found that electrons are confined within a trap predominantly by magnetic fields.     

Effect of a longitudinal magnetic field on the excitation of plasma wake waves

The effect of a longitudinal magnetic field on the linear wake fields excited by a relativistic electron bunch in a cold homogeneous plasma is considered. The obtained results prove that the presence of an external magnetic field leads to a dependence of the wake wavelength on the transverse coordinate, to a change in the wave amplitude with increasing distance from the bunch, and to the emergence of anharmonicity. It is found that a strong magnetic field reduces the wave amplitude significantly for narrow bunches and changes the amplitude insignificantly for broad bunches.     

Energy spread in plasma-based acceleration

Electron acceleration in a one-dimensional plasma wave has been simulated, with emphasis on minimizing the energy spread of an accelerated electron bunch, while keeping the mean energy gain at a reasonable level. Bunch length, beam loading, and the injection phase are tuned to reach this goal. The simulation results show that, in a wide range of initial bunch lengths and beam loading parameters, an optimum acceleration distance exists, which combines low energy spread and high energy gain. The energy spread at the optimum is found to be weakly dependent on bunch length and beam loading, while it is highly sensitive to deviations in the injection phase     

Adiabatic plasma buncher

In this paper, we present a new scheme of injection into a plasma accelerator, aimed at producing a high-quality beam while relaxing the demands on the bunch length of the injected beam. The beam dynamics in the injector, consisting of a high-voltage pulsed photodiode, is analyzed and optimized to produce a λ_p/20 long electron bunch at 2.5 MeV. This bunch is injected into a plasma wave in which it compresses down to λ_p/100, while accelerating up to 250 MeV. This simultaneous bunching and acceleration of a high-quality beam requires a proper combination of injection energy and injection phase. Preliminary results from simulations are shown to assess the potentials of the scheme     

Plasma in open magnetic trap injected from independent UHF source

The properties of plasma injected into the open magnetic trap of uniform field from an independent UHF source have been investigated. It is established that a rather quiescent plasma with control density within the range of 2×10⁸–2×10¹² cm^–3 and temperature 2–3 eV is accumulated in the trap. It turned out that plasma lifetime in the trap is determined by a classical mechanism of particle escape at the expense of collisions, at fixed value of magnetic field in the trap it is not practically changed with the variation of neutral gas pressure and reaches the maximum value 4×10^–3 s at magnetic field strength in the trap equal 1600 Oe. Besides, the experimental data are analyzed on the basis of balance equations.     

Temperature dependence of the electric field gradient in GaN measured with the PAC-probe 181Hf

A radial inhomogeneous magnetic field produced by counter-propagating currents in anti-Helmholtz configuration coils has been superimposed to a Penning trap. The confinement properties of electrons in such a trap have been studied experimentally. Without the radial B-field we find a number of operating conditions where instabilities occur, arising from higher order contributions to the quadrupolar trapping field. When we apply the radial field the trap properties remain essentially unchanged until the strength of this field at the boundary of the electron cloud is of the same order as the homogeneous Penning field. Then a sudden breakdown in the confinement appears. The experiments have been performed in low magnetic fields. The equations of motions of the trapped particles can be cast in a dimensionless form and our results can be considered as independent of the field strength. Contribution was presented at the TCP06, Vancouver Island, 2006.     

Transformation of a nonlinear plasma wave into electromagnetic radiation in a periodic magnetic field

We study transformation of a nonlinear plasma wave into electromagnetic radiation in the periodic static magnetic field of an undulator. Such a wave can be excited by a short laser pulse or a relativistic electron bunch. The features of relativistic upper-hybrid plasma oscillations are analyzed. In the approximation of constant pump, resonance conditions of excitation of an electromagnetic wave and the characteristic transformation length are found. The nonlinear stage of transformation with allowance for pump depletion is considered. The studied phenomenon can be used for development of a high-power terahertz-radiatoin source. __________ Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 50, No. 6, pp. 496–507, June 2007.     

Generation of short electron bunches by a laser pulse crossing a sharp boundary of inhomogeneous plasma

The formation of short electron bunches during the passage of a laser pulse of relativistic intensity through a sharp boundary of semi-bounded plasma has been analytically studied. It is shown in one-dimensional geometry that one physical mechanism that is responsible for the generation of electron bunches is their self-injection into the wake field of a laser pulse, which occurs due to the mixing of electrons during the action of the laser pulse on plasma. Simple analytic relationships are obtained that can be used for estimating the length and charge of an electron bunch and the spread of electron energies in the bunch. The results of the analytical investigation are confirmed by data from numerical simulations.     

冷原子的双阱微磁表面囚禁

提出了两种新颖的采用载流导线的双阱微磁表面囚禁方案(即双U形与双Z形导线囚禁)。通过改变囚禁方案中直导线中的电流方向，即可将双U形导线囚禁改变为双Z形导线囚禁；如果逐渐减小直导线中的电流大小，即可将一个双阱微磁囚禁连续地合并为一个单阱微磁囚禁，反之亦然。详细计算和分析了上述两种载流导线囚禁方案的磁场及其梯度的空间分布。研究发现在导线中通以较小的电流，即可在导线表面附近产生很大的磁场梯度及其曲率。例如当电流为O．2A时，其磁场梯度和曲率可分别达到0．2T／cm和10T／cm2以上。由于双U形导线囚禁中存在磁场零点，而双Z形导线囚禁中仅存在磁场最小值，所以双U形导线囚禁仅适用于制备双样品磁光囚禁(MOT)或研究中性原子的冷碰撞，而双Z形导线囚禁除了可用于研究原子的冷碰撞之外，还可以用于制备双样品玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚(BEC)或实验研究双阱玻色-爱因斯坦凝聚的性质等。