A Plasma Wave Accelerator - Surfatron II

The Plasma Beat Wave Accelerator - I Experiments

In the Plasma Beat Wave Accelerator, acceleration is achieved by a longitudinal electrostatic field produced as a result of charge separation generated by a plasma wave traveling close to the speed of light. The plasma wave in turn is produced by two colinear laser pulses whose amplitude is modulated so that the beat frequency matches the plasma frequency. Optical mixing and Raman forward scatt...

Plasma-wave generation in the beat-wave accelerator.

We analytically study the generation of longitudinal plasma waves in an underdense plasma by two electromagnetic waves with frequency difference approximately equal to the plasma frequency, as envisioned in the plasma beat-wave accelerator concept of Tajima and Dawson. The relativistic electron fluid equations describing driven electron oscillations with phase velocities near the speed of light...

A Comparison of the Plasm-a Beat Wave Accelerator and the Plasma Wake Field Accelerator*

In this paper we compare the Plasma Beat Wave Accelerator and the Plasma Wake Field Accelerator. We show that the electric fields in the plasma for both schemes are very similar, and thus the dynamics of the driven beams are very similar. The differences appear in the parameters associated with the driving beams. In particular to obtain a given accelerating gradient, the Plasma Wake Field Accel...

Acceleration of Injected Electrons by the Plasma Beat Wave Accelerator

In this paper we describe the recent work at UCLA on the acceleration of externally injected electrons by a relativistic plasma wave. A two frequency laser was used to excite a plasma wave over a narrow range of static gas pressures close to resonance. Electrons with energies up to our detection limit of 9.1 MeV were observed when 2.1 MeV electrons were injected in the plasma wave. No accelerat...

Propagating Magnetic Wave Plasma Accelerator (PMWAC) for Deep Space Exploration