On the influence of the electron-velocity spread in a beam on the mechanism of Cherenkov beam–plasma interaction

The instability of an electron beam in cold plasma is considered in the linear potential approximation with different velocity-distribution functions of beam electrons. It is demonstrated that the mechanism of beam instability in plasma changes as the electron-velocity spread is increased: the hydrodynamic single-particle instability mode evolves into the hydrodynamic collective mode or the single-particle kinetic one. Instability growth rates in different modes are determined analytically and numerically.     

低密等离子体通道中的非共振激光直接加速

在低密等离子体通道中, 横向有质动力可以有效调制电子的横向振荡过程. 一方面, 横向有质动力可以向外推动电子, 增大电子横向振荡振幅, 减小失相率, 使电子获得能量增益; 另一方面, 横向有质动力也可以通过对失相率的非线性调制来降低失相率, 在电子横向振荡振幅很小的情况下导致激光直接加速. 横向有质动力调制的大小由等离子体密度、激光强度和束宽共同决定. 三维模型结果也证实可以通过参数放大实现激光直接加速, 弥补了准二维模型的局限性.     

Influence of the beam-forming conditions on the development of space-charge oscillations in a long-pulse relativistic electron beam

The characteristics of the space-charge oscillations of a long-pulse relativistic electron beam in magnetically insulated diodes are determined for different geometries of the electron acceleration section and for explosive-emission cathodes of different materials. The important role of the stream of electrons having high transverse velocities in the evolution of the oscillations is demonstrated, and the laws governing the generation of this stream are determined. Possible mechanisms of the space-charge oscillations are described, taking into account the interaction of the electron stream in the beam halo with the main electron stream, the development of diocotron instability in the stream of electrons emitted by the outer lateral surface of the plasma emitter, and the instability of the space charge of “long-lived” electrons in the beam transport channel. Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 68, 102–106 (April 1998)     

Modulational Instability of Ion-Acoustic Waves in a Warm Plasma with a Relativistic Electron Beam

The modulational instability of ion-acoustic wave in a collisionless, unmagnetized plasma consisting ofwarm ions, hot isothermal electrons, and relativistic electron beam is studied. A modified nonlinear Schrodinger equationincluding one additional term that comes from the effect of relativistic electron beam is derived. It is found that theinclusion of a relativistic electron beam would modify the modulational instability of the wave packet and could notadmit any stationary soliton waves.     

Cherenkov instability of a magnetized beam-plasma system with allowance for a momentum spread of beam electrons

Cherenkov instability is considered in a completely magnetized homogeneous beam-plasma system featuring a thermal momentum spread of beam electrons. The thermal spread in the beam is described in the scope of both the hydrodynamic approach and the kinetic equation method by giving the electron momentum distribution function in the form of theMaxwellian and semi-Maxwellian distributions. It is shown that two beam-plasma instability regimes, the single-particle and collective Cherenkov effects (Compton and Raman regimes) differing by the physical mechanism and the increments, are possible in a system (waveguide) with homogeneous transverse beam and plasma density profiles. Solutions to dispersion equations for these and a more general regime are obtained and analyzed.     

Effects of Ions Charge-Mass Ratio on Energy and Energy Spread of Accelerated Ions in Laser Driven Plasma

Effects of ions charge-mass ratio on energy and energy spread of accelerated ions in laser driven plasma are investigated in detail by proposing a simple double-layer model for a foil target driven by an ultrastrong laser. The radiation pressure acceleration mechanism plays an important role on the studied problem. For the ions near the plasma mirror, i.e. electrons layer, the dependence of ions energy on their charge-mass ratio is derived theoretically. It is found that the larger the charge-mass ratio is, the higher the accelerated ions energy gets. For those ions far away from the layer, the dependence of energy and energy spread on ions charge-mass ratio are also obtained by numerical performance. It exhibits that, as ions charge-mass ratio increases, not only the accelerated ions energy but also the energy spread will become large.     

Oblique electron-beam injection into plasma: effect of externalmagnetic field upon gun environment

When injecting an electron beam with a significant pitch-angle in a magnetoplasma, one has to take care that the parallel velocity of the electrons measured in the plasma does not only depend on the acceleration potential between the anode and the cathode of the electron gun, but also on the amplitude of the ambient magnetic field. The latter can play an important role when the actual acceleration distance of electrons in the gun vicinity, determined partly by collective processes that lead to potential modification in the gun environment, is large enough. Consequently, the actual beam pitch-angle can be noticeably different from the orientation of the electron gun     

A New Scheme for High‐Intensity Laser‐Driven Electron Acceleration in a Plasma

We propose a new approach to high‐intensity relativistic laser‐driven electron acceleration in a plasma. Here, we demonstrate that a plasma wave generated by a stimulated forward‐scattering of an incident laser pulse can be in the longest acceleration phase with injected relativistic beam electrons. This is why the plasma wave has the maximum amplification coefficient which is determined by the acceleration time and the breakdown (overturn) electric field in which the acceleration of the injected beam electrons occurs. We must note that for the longest acceleration phase the relativity of the injected beam electrons plays a crucial role in our scheme. We estimate qualitatively the acceleration parameters of relativistic electrons in the field of a plasma wave generated at the stimulated forward‐scattering of a high‐intensity laser pulse in a plasma. (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

The spread of the initial energy of electrons in a gyrotron due to the negative-mass instability developing in a magnetron-injector gun

The formation of an electron beam in a magnetron-injector gun of a gyrotron is investigated in the case when it is affected by the negative-mass instability due to the Coulomb repulsion and nonisochronous cyclotron rotation of particles. A technique is proposed for calculating the spread of the initial energy of electrons caused by the instability, which develops as the electron beam moves in the presence of a nonuniform magnetostatic field of the magnetron-injector gun. It is demonstrated that this instability can be one of the main factors providing the energy spread in electron guns of gyrotrons.     

Energetic electron and ion beam generation in plasma openingswitches

In this paper, we present measurements of ion and electron flows in a nanosecond plasma opening switch (NPOS) and a microsecond plasma opening switch (MPOS), performed using charge collectors. In both experiments, an electron flow toward the anode, followed by an ion flow, were observed to propagate downstream toward the load side of the plasma during the plasma opening switch (POS) conduction. In the MPOS, ion acceleration was observed to propagate axially through the entire plasma. These results are in satisfactory agreement with the predictions of the electron magnetohydrodynamics (EHMD) theory and the results of fluid and particle-in-cell (PIC) code simulations. At the beginning of the POS opening, a high-current density (≈2 kA/cm²) short-duration (10-30 ns) axial ion flow downstream toward the load was observed in both experiments, with an electron beam in front of it. These ions are accelerated at the load side of the plasma and are accompanied by comoving electrons. In the NPOS, the ion energy reaches 1.35 MeV, whereas in the MPOS, the ion energy does not exceed 100 keV. We suggest that in the NPOS the dominant mechanism for the axial ion acceleration is collective acceleration by the space charge of the electron beam, while in the MPOS, axial ion acceleration is probably governed by the Hall field in the current carrying plasma     

Thermal effects in the dissipative instability of the electron beam-plasma systems

The effects of the thermal motion of the charged particles in the dissipative instability of the under and over-limiting currents of a relativistic electron beam in a fully magnetized beam-plasma waveguide is investigated. It is shown that by increasing the temperature of the plasma electrons, the resonant frequency of the waveguide slightly increases and the growth rates of the instability development decreases. In addition, an increase of the temperature of the plasma electron can change the dissipative hydrodynamic instability to the collisionless kinetic instability. Furthermore, the dissipative instability of the overlimiting electron beam is shown to be more sensitive with respect to the electron plasma temperature compared to the underlimiting electron beam case.     

Nonlinear theory of resonant beam-plasma interaction: Nonrelativistic case

Analytic and numerical methods are used to study the nonlinear dynamics of the resonant interaction between a dense nonrelativistic electron beam and a plasma in a spatially bounded system. Regimes such as collective (Raman) and single-particle (Thomson) Cherenkov effects are considered. It is shown that in the first case, the motion of both the beam and plasma electrons exhibits significant nonlinearities. However, because of the weak coupling between the beam and the plasma, the nonlinear dynamics of the instability can be studied analytically and it can be strictly shown that saturation of instability is caused by a nonlinear shift of the radiation frequency and loss of resonance. In the second case, the nonlinear instability dynamics can only be studied numerically. In this regime, at low beam densities significant nonlinearity is only observed in the motion of the beam electrons while the plasma remains linear and saturation of the instability is caused by trapping of beam electrons in the field of the beam-excited plasma wave.     

Acceleration of nonmonoenergetic electron bunches injected into a wake wave

The trapping and acceleration of nonmonoenergetic electron bunches in a wake field wave excited by a laser pulse in a plasma channel is studied. Electrons are injected into the region of the wake wave potential maximum at a velocity lower than the phase velocity of the wave. The paper analyzes the grouping of bunch electrons in the energy space emerging in the course of acceleration under certain conditions of their injection into the wake wave and minimizing the energy spread for such electrons. The factors determining the minimal energy spread between bunch electrons are analyzed. The possibility of monoenergetic acceleration of electron bunches generated by modern injectors in a wake wave is analyzed.     

On the Kinetics of the Active Zone of the Stationary SF6 Beam Discharge Plasma

The paper deals with the impact of intensive electron attachment on the kinetics of the electrons in the active zone of the stationary band-like beam discharge plasma in SF₆ which is an alternative useful plasma medium for “dry etching”. The energy distribution of the electrons in this plasma was obtained by numerically solving the Boltzmann equation which includes apart from elastic collisions, different exciting collision processes, attachment in electron collisions, direct ionization, the ambipolar loss of electrons, Coulomb interaction between electrons and of electrons with ions and the power input to the electrons by the turbulent electric field. In particular, due to the needed fulfilment of the consistent electron particle balance, for an extended region of the turbulence energy density in this plasma a large impact on the electron kinetics of the intensive electron attachment, which is the prevailing electron loss process, was found enforcing independent of the turbulence energy density always a large power input to the electrons, smooth and only slowly decreasing energy distributions even in the energy region of direct ionization.     

Using Target Ablation for Ion Beam Quality Improvement

During the laser foil interaction,the output ion beam quality including the energy spread and beam divergence can be improved by the target ablation,due to the direct laser acceleration(DLA) electrons generated in the ablation plasma.The acceleration field established at the target rear by these electrons,which is highly directional and triangle-envelope,is helpful for the beam quality.With the help of the target ablation,both the beam divergence and energy spread will be reduced.If the ablation is more sufficient,the impact of DLA-electron-caused field will be strengthened,and the beam quality will be better,confirmed by the particle-in-cell simulation.     

Hose instability and wake generation by an intense electron beam in a self-ionized gas

The propagation of an intense relativistic electron beam through a gas that is self-ionized by the beam's space charge and wakefields is examined analytically and with 3D particle-in-cell simulations. Instability arises from the coupling between a beam and the offset plasma channel it creates when it is perturbed. The traditional electron hose instability in a preformed plasma is replaced with this slower growth instability depending on the radius of the ionization channel compared to the electron blowout radius. A new regime for hose stable plasma wakefield acceleration is suggested.     

Reformed Solitary Kinetic Alfven Waves due to Dissipations and Auroral Electron Acceleration

The physical nature of the auroral electron acceleration has been an outstanding problem in space physics for decades. Some recent observations from the auroral orbit satellites, FREJA and FAST, showed that large amplitude solitary kinetic Alfvén waves (SKAWs) are a common electromagnetic active phenomenon in the auroral magnetosphere. In a low-β (i.e., β/2<<m_e/m_i<<1) plasma, the drift velocity of electrons relative to ions within SKAWs is much larger than thermal velocities of both electrons and ions. This leads to instabilities and causes dissipations of SKAWs. In the present work, based on the analogy of classical particle motion in a potential well, it is shown that a shock-like structure can be formed from SKAWs if dissipation effects are included. The reformed SKAWs with a shock-like structure have a local density jump and a net field-aligned electric potential drop of order of m_ev_A²/e over a characteristic width of several λ_e. As a consequence, the reformed SKAWs can efficiently accelerate electrons field-aligned to the order of the local Alfvén velocity. In particular, we argue that this electron acceleration mechanism by reformed SKAWs can play an important role in the auroral electron acceleration problem. The result shows that not only the location of acceleration regions predicted by this model is well consistent with the observed auroral electron acceleration region of 1—2 R_E above the auroral ionosphere, but also the accelerated electrons from this region can obtain an energy of several keV and carry a field-aligned current of several μA/m² which are comparable to the observations of auroral electrons.     

Oscillating two-stream instability of laser wakefield-driven plasma wave

The laser wakefield-driven plasma wave in a low-density plasma is seen to be susceptible to the oscillating two-stream instability (OTSI). The plasma wave couples to two short wavelength plasma wave sidebands. The pump plasma wave and sidebands exert a ponderomotive force on the electrons driving a low-frequency quasimode. The electron density perturbation associated with this mode couples with the pump-driven electron oscillatory velocity to produce nonlinear currents driving the sidebands. At large pump amplitude, the instability grows faster than the ion plasma frequency and ions do not play a significant role. The growth rate of the quasimode, at large pump amplitude scales faster than linear. The growth rate is maximum for an optimum wave number of the quasimode and also increases with pump amplitude. Nonlocal effects, however reduce the growth rate by about half.     

Novel features of non-linear Raman instability in a laser plasma

The electron phase space evolution in a non-relativistic and homogeneous laser plasma generated by a nanosecond laser in a near infrared region in the presence of stimulated Raman scattering is investigated by a numerical simulation. The mechanism of electron acceleration in the potential wells of the plasma wave accompanying the Raman back-scattering is analyzed in a 1D Vlasov-Maxwell model. The dominant wave modes are both the backward and the forward propagating Raman waves, each accompanied by a daughter electrostatic wave. In addition to a strong interaction of plasma electrons with the primary electrostatic wave in the case of back-scattering, a cascading is observed consisting in a secondary scattering of the primary Raman back-scattered wave. This phenomenon reduces the Raman reflectivity and causes an acceleration of electrons against the direction of the heating laser beam. Moreover, the strong trapping in the primary electrostatic wave generated by the Raman back-scattering leads due to the trapped particle instability to a significant spectral broadening of the original plasma wave and a subsequent intermittent behaviour of the scattering process. The high phase velocity electrostatic daughter wave of the forward Raman scattering cannot trap the electrons directly, but there is an indication of non-resonant quasi-modes combined of this wave and of the simultaneously existing electrostatic daughter wave accompanying the Raman back-scattering. The transform method is used for a solution of the set of partial differential equations, which consists of the Vlasov equation and of the full set of Maxwell equations in a 1D approximation. A simplified Fokker-Planck collision term is added to overcome the numerical instabilities during the simulation. The model has relevance to a long scale plasma geometry, such as occurring in the indirect drive experiments near the light entrance holes of target hohlraum.