Experimental Results of a Plasma Wakefield Accelerator Using Multiple Electron Bunches

We present some preliminary experimental results of a plasma wakefield accelerator technique which utilizes multiple electron bunches in order to drive a plasma wave. The experiments were performed at the Accelerator Test Facility of Brookhaven National Laboratory where 5 8 equidistant bunches with a spacing that was varied between 100 250 m were fed into a 6 mm long capillary discharge plasma. By varying the time delay of the bunches with respect to the discharge different plasma densities could be tuned, and the effects of the plasma on the bunches were recorded. Such multiple bunch schemes are of great interest because they can provide increased efficiencies and high transformer ratios for advanced accelerators.