ACCELERATOR CONCEPT

THE PLASMA BEATWAVE ACCELERATOR IS ONE OF A NUMBER OF PARTICLE ACCELERATOR CONCEPTS UTILIZING THE HIGH FIELDS INHERENT IN INTENSE LASER BEAMS. IN THIS CASE, EM WAVES INTERACT NONLINEARLY WITH AN UNDERDENSE PLASMA THROUGH OPTICAL MIXING OR RAMAN FORWARD SCATTERING (RFS) TO EXCITE LARGE AMPLITUDE PLASMA WAVES. THE PLASMA SELF-FIELDS PROVIDE THE ACCELERATION. THUS, THE CONCEPT IS A COLLECTIVEEFFECT ACCELERATOR. THE LONGITUDINAL ELECTROSTATIC FIELD OFTHE PLASMA DEPENDS ON THE PLASMA DENSITY AND IS TYPICALLY ON THE ORDER OF MCW(P)/E. WE HAVE ALREADY PERFORMED SIGNIFICANT WORK IN THIS AREA AND PROPOSE TO CONTINUE THIS EFFORT. THE RESEARCH WILL MAINLY CONSIST OF ONE-DIMENSIONALAND FULLY TWO-DIMENSIONAL ELECTROMAGNETIC PARTICLE-IN-CELL SIMULATIONS TO DETERMINE THE FEASIBILITY OF THE PLASMA BEATWAVE CONCEPT DURING PHASE I AND II. PHASE III WOULD CONSIST OF EXPERIMENTS PERFORMED AT A LARGE LASER FACILITY. WE WILL COORDINATE OUR RESEARCH WITH ANY OTHER ONGOING RESEARCH EFFORTS IN THIS AREA.