AURORA HIGH-POWER MICROWAVE GENERATION WITH PLASMA WAKEFIELD RELATIVISTIC KLYSTRON (PWRK)

THE AURORA FACILITY HAS GREAT POTENTIAL AS A HIGH-POWER MICROWAVE FACILITY. RECORD HIGH MICROWAVE POWER AND ENERGY COULD BE ACHIEVED, IF ONLY A SMALL FRACTION OF THE 3.6 TW ELECTRON BEAM POWER ON EACH OF THE FOUR OUTPUT LINES CAN BE COUPLED OUT. TO ACHIEVE THIS OBJECTIVE, WE PROPOSE A NEW CONCEPT TO GENERATE HIGH POWER MICROWAVES ON AURORA. THIS CONCEPT EMPLOYS PLASMA WAKEFIELD PHENOMENON TO BUNCH HIGHCURRENT RELATIVISTIC ELECTRON BEAMS. MICROWAVE ENERGY IS EXTRACTED OUT OF THE BUNCHED BEAMS VIA ONE OR MORE RESONANT CAVITIES, SIMILAR TO THAT IN KLYSTRONS. IT APPEARS FROM INITIAL ESTIMATES THAT HIGH POWER MICROWAVE GENERATION AT A FREQUENCY ON THE ORDER OF 1 GHZ WITH SEVERAL TENS OF PERCENT EFFICIENCY IS FEASIBLE. THE OBJECTIVES OF THE PHASE I PROGRAM ARE TO DETERMINE THE FEASIBILITY OF THE PROPOSED APPROACH ON AURORA WITH THEORY AND PIC SIMULATORS, TO DESIGN A PROOF-OF-PRINCIPLE EXPERIMENT TO BE PERFORMED ON TEMPO EARLY IN THE PHASE II PROGRAM, AND TO COMPLETE A CONCEPTUAL DESIGN OF A FULL AURORA EXPERIMENT TO BE IMPLEMENTED IN THE LATER PART OF THE PHASE II PROGRAM.