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Nonlinear Langmuir waves are of fundamental interest beam density with period set by the relativistic plasma
in plasma and accelerator physics [1]. Large amplitude frequency. The density modulation reaches a minimum
plasma waves can be excited either by the passage of a after a propagation distance corresponding to a =2
high power electron or laser beam in a plasma or by plasma phase advance, concurrently with a maximum in
preparing the system with appropriate initial conditions energy modulation. In the absence of damping, which can
far from equilibrium and letting it evolve. A relativistic be caused by large uncorrelated energy spread or emit-
electron beam is a particular case where one has a chance tance, such energy modulation will be reconverted back
to directly observe the dynamics of the large amplitude into density modulation after another 1=4 period of plasma
plasma waves associated with density modulations in the oscillation and so on.
longitudinal beam profile. The study of such systems has In this Letter we study theoretically and experimentally
direct relevance and application to the generation and the evolution of a large initial density modulation in the
control of intense bunch trains with high peak current temporal profile of a relativistic electron beam. For large
and fixed periodicity. This is important for applications enough initial modulation, the linear theory breaks down
such as superradiant production of radiation [2], control of and the dynamics is more complicate due to the appearance
the microbunching instability [3], and generation of power- of harmonics of the modulation frequency along the beam
ful driver beams for resonant excitation of dielectric and/or propagation. The harmonics interfere constructively after
plasma wakefields in advanced accelerators [4,5]. 1=2 period of plasma oscillation leading to the formation of
In order to create a high frequency bunch train structure high peak current spikes. This suggests that in order to
in relativistic beams, several techniques have been studied. obtain very high peak current bunch trains, one could
These include the use of a transverse mask in a dispersive simply increase the beam charge density and let a premo-
region in combination with an energy chirp [5], or before a dulated beam propagate for a distance equivalent to 1=2
longitudinal to transverse exchange beam line [6]. Many plasma oscillation period under the action of its own space-
authors have proposed to generate the beam modulation charge forces. The physics of the problem is well described
directly at the cathode [7,8]. Boscolo et al. [9] have looked by a simple 1D cold fluid model which is very similar to the
into using rf velocity bunching as a way to compensate for one employed in the study of large amplitude oscillations
the longitudinal space-charge effects and recover the initial in plasma physics by Davidson et al. [11], with the proper
distribution. In all these cases, the problem arises on how to modifications due to the beam being a non-neutral relativ-
preserve the modulation for large enough beam currents istic plasma. The current spike formation is associated to
when longitudinal space-charge effects might contribute to the wave-breaking phenomenon when particles overtake
smearing out any structure in the temporal beam profile the wave in longitudinal phase space. Fully 3D particle
[10] thus limiting the attainable peak currents in bunch tracking simulations are employed to evaluate the effects
train mode. of finite beam length, beam energy spread, finite transverse
As opposed to trying to contrast the action of the longi- beam size and particle transverse motion, and show a very
tudinal space-charge forces, we explore here what happens good agreement with the 1D model prediction. The validity
to the beam temporal profile when the effect of the self- of the scheme is demonstrated by the results of an experi-
forces is magnified by increasing the charge density (either ment performed at the UCLA Pegasus photoinjector,
by using larger beam charges, or by tighter transverse where we launch on the cathode a THz-modulated beam
focusing). For a small initial modulation, the linear theory and directly observe the evolution of the temporal profile
of plasma oscillations predicts a periodic evolution of the with an rf deflector.
Bunching factor
1.10 3rd
9 0.2
9th
1.08
relativistic beam with an initial modulation, one can start 1.06
Initial
After Tp /4 8
After Tp /2 7 0.1
from a 1D cold fluid model. The system can be written as 1.04
6
Density
1.02
Density
5 0.0
eE 1.00 0.00 0.25 0.50
@t þ c @z ¼
t/ Tp
4
; (1) 0.98
3 mc 0.96 3
2
0.94
0.92 1
en 0.90 0
@z E ¼ ; (2) 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
0 kz / 2π kz / 2π
1.2 1.6 pC
3.9 pC 0.50
1.0 15 pC
Phase
0.6
0.25
0.4
0.2
0.0 0.00
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
z (m)
FIG. 2 (color online). Longitudinal phase space from the
GPT 3D simulation of a coasting beam case. The particles are
FIG. 3 (color online). GPT simulation of the Pegasus beam
color coded with their radial positions. Particles at higher radius
line. Evolution of the rms transverse beam size for three different
experience a lower longitudinal space-charge field and advance
beam charges (solid lines). The corresponding evolution of the
slower in the plasma dynamics.
plasma phase advance calculated using the beam density from
the simulations is also shown.
In agreement with the predictions, at z ¼ 0:21 m corre-
sponding to a =2 phase advance of the 3D plasma fre- constant during the measurements. The quadrupole focus-
quency, the energy modulation is maximum and the ing is slightly adjusted each time the charge is changed to
density modulation is zero. At z ¼ 0:42 m the initial optimize the width of the unstreaked spot on the detection
modulation appears again with an increased harmonic screen downstream of the deflector.
content and the longitudinal phase space distribution shows In Fig. 3 we show the GPT simulation of the evolution of
the steepened wave and the particles piling up at the wave- the rms beam transverse size up to the deflector. From the
breaking points. The current spikes in these simulations simulation, it is possible
R !p3Dto retrieve the beam density and
reach 1.5 kAmps, 6 times larger than the initial ave- perform the integral c dz to calculate the plasma phase
rage beam current. This current enhancement is slightly advance for different beam charges. When doing this, it is
smaller than the 1D model prediction due to the uncorre- important to keep track of the plasma frequency reduction
lated energy spread and emittance smearing effects. due to the 3D geometric effects in the region close to the
Nevertheless, the agreement is remarkable and shows beam focus. As seen in Fig. 3, most of the plasma phase
how the simple dimensionless 1D model essentially cap- advance occurs in the region close to the cathode and at the
tures the physics of the wave evolution. beam focus.
The increase in the harmonic content of the modulation The images obtained on the screen after the rf deflector
and the large peak current enhancement suggest an inter- are shown in Fig. 4. The rf gun phase controls the overall
esting possibility of taking advantage of collective beam microbunch spacing and in order to preserve the 1-ps
forces. In order to generate intense electron bunch trains, periodicity was set at 35. The residual rf curvature is
one could start from a large enough initial modulation and responsible for the different spacing of the bunches at
adopt the counterintuitive solution of increasing the charge the beam head and tail. For very low charge (1.6 pC)
in the beam and wait for a propagation distance corre- the temporal beam profile is a good approximation of the
sponding to 1=2 plasma oscillation. We performed an initial modulation. As the charge is increased to 3.9 pC,
experiment at the UCLA Pegasus Laboratory to test these corresponding to a =2 plasma phase advance, the profile
ideas. The cathode in a 1.6 cell rf photoinjector is illumi- becomes uniform. For larger charges, the modulation
nated by a train of 8 equally spaced laser pulses created reappears. Note that only 7 peaks are visible. This is ex-
using 3 -BBO birefringent crystals [14] of thicknesses 1, pected, since, due the phase shift in plasma oscillation,
2 and 4 mm. The induced periodicity has frequency 1 THz the spikes arise from the valleys of the original distribution.
and wavelength ¼ 300 m. The temporal resolution of the measurement is limited
The total charge in the beam is limited by the available by the unstreaked beam size and by the spatial resolution of
laser energy after the crystals to 40 pC. In order to accel- the screen. In order to demonstrate the increased harmonic
erate the plasma oscillation dynamics with this relatively content in the spikes, we repeat the measurement at a
low charge, the gun solenoid is used to focus the beam to a downstream screen. In this case, due to the finite transverse
tight spot at about 80 cm from the cathode. The beam is dimensions of the screen, it is not possible to capture the
then refocused by a quadrupole and streaked using a full length of the beam in a single shot. Zooming in on a
9.6 GHz 500 kV rf deflecting cavity located at a distance small temporal region covering only few of the spikes we
of 1.8 m from the cathode. We vary the plasma frequency obtain the results shown in Fig. 5. The current spikes in the
by controlling the laser energy on the cathode and hence 16 pC case (right inset) are significantly narrower than the
the photoemitted charge. The solenoid field is kept 1.6 pC image (left inset). In the graph showing the streak
184801-3
week ending
PRL 106, 184801 (2011) PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 6 MAY 2011
1.6 pC 1.6 pC 16 pC
a) 1.6 pC 2 mm b) 3.9 pC 16 pC
140 GPT simulation
Convolution of simulation
120 and screen resolution
100
Arb. units
80
60
40
20
c) 9.0 pC d) 22 pC
0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
Time (ps)
3.9 pC
9.0 pC
trol nonlinear longitudinal space-charge oscillations and
15
22 pC open the way to optimization of this scheme for the gen-
10 eration of high peak current bunch trains for applications in
the field of coherent radiation generation, and plasma and
5 dielectric wakefield acceleration.
The authors want to acknowledge all the members of the
0 UCLA Pegasus Laboratory for their help. This work was
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
y (pixel) supported by DOE grants DE-FG02-92ER40693 and DE-
FG02-07ER46272 and ONR grant N000140711174.
FIG. 4 (color online). Bunch train streak-images for four dif-
ferent charges. The lineouts of the beam temporal profiles are
also shown. The FWHM width of the unstreaked spot size on this
screen is 17 pixels.
[1] J. M. Dawson, Phys. Rev. 113, 383 (1959).
[2] A. Gover, Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams 8, 030701 (2005).
lineouts, the vertical scales are normalized to yield a [3] E. Saldin et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect.
constant average beam current. In the GPT simulation, A 528, 355 (2004); Z. Huang et al., Phys. Rev. ST Accel.
the density spike has a peak current almost twice larger Beams 7, 074401 (2004).
than the measurement, suggesting that even in these con- [4] C. Jing et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 144801 (2007).
ditions the temporal resolution is not enough to resolve the [5] P. Muggli, V. Yakimenko, M. Babzien, E. Kallos, and K. P.
Kusche. Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 054801 (2008).
peak width. If we convolve the simulation result with
[6] Y. E. Sun, P. Piot, A. Johnson, A. H. Lumpkin, T. J.
the unstreaked spot dimensions we retrieve almost exactly Maxwell, J. Ruan, and R. Thurman-Keup, Phys. Rev.
the measured profile. Lett. 105, 234801 (2010).
In conclusion, in this Letter we explored theoretically [7] Y. Li and K. J. Kim, Appl. Phys. Lett. 92, 014101 (2008).
and experimentally the physics of nonlinear longitudinal [8] J. G. Neumann, R. B. Fiorito, P. G. O’Shea, H. Loos, B.
space-charge oscillations. The nonlinear theory of plasma Sheehy, Y. Shen, and Z. Wu, J. Appl. Phys. 105, 053304
waves has been applied to describe the evolution of large (2009).
initial modulations on the density of a relativistic electron [9] M. Boscolo, M. Ferrario, I. Boscolo, F. Castelli, and S.
beam. We demonstrated experimentally the validity of our Cialdi, Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. A 577,
theoretical model by imposing a ps-initial modulation on 409 (2007).
the beam from the cathode and directly observing its [10] J. R. Harris, J. G. Neumann, K. Tian, and P. G. O’Shea,
Phys. Rev. E 76, 026402 (2007).
evolution with an rf streak camera with subps temporal
[11] R. C. Davidson. in Methods in Nonlinear Plasma Theory
resolution. The plasma phase advance is controlled by (Academic Press, NY, 1972).
tuning the beam charge and focusing. As predicted in [12] http://www.pulsar.nl/gpt.
shot-noise reduction schemes [15], after 1=4 oscillation [13] A. Marinelli et al., Phys. Rev. E (to be published).
the initial modulation is completely washed out and one [14] P. Musumeci et al., J. Appl. Phys. 108, 114513 (2010).
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the modulation reappears, with enhanced harmonic (2009).
184801-4