Three-Dimensional Acoustic Monitoring of Laser-Accelerated Protons in the Focus of a Pulsed-Power Solenoid Lens

Abstract The acoustic pulse emitted from the Bragg peak of a laser-accelerated proton bunch focused into water has recently enabled reconstruction energy distribution. By adding three ultrasonic transducers and implementing fast data analysis filtered raw signals, I-BEAT (Ion-Bunch Energy Acoustic Tracing) 3D now provides mean absolute lateral position in real-time for individual bunches. Relative changes spread size can also be monitored. Our experiments at DRACO with energies between 10 30 MeV reveal sub-MeV sub-mm resolution. In addition to this information, signal strength correlates particle number.