Self-adaptive stabilization and quality boost for electron beams from all-optical plasma wakefield accelerators

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Campbell, D. and Heinemann, T. and Dickson, A. and Wilson, T. and Berman, L. and Cerchez, M. and Corde, S. and Döpp, A. and Habib, A. F. and Irman, A. and Karsch, S. and Martinez De La Ossa, A. and Pukhov, A. and Reichwein, L. and Schramm, U. and Sutherland, A. and Hidding, B. (2026) Self-adaptive stabilization and quality boost for electron beams from all-optical plasma wakefield accelerators. Physical Review Research, 8 (1). 013273. ISSN 2643-1564 (https://doi.org/10.1103/p6ss-vgq5)

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Abstract

Shot-to-shot fluctuations in electron beams from laser wakefield accelerators present a significant challenge for applications. Here, we show that instead of using such fluctuating beams directly, employing them to drive a plasma photocathode-based wakefield refinement stage can produce sec-ondary electron beams with higher quality, and greater stability. Our simulation-based analysis reveals that drive beam jitters are partially compensated by both the insensitivity of beam-driven plasma wakefield acceleration, and the decoupled physics of plasma photocathode injection. While beam-driven, dephasing-free plasma wakefield acceleration mitigates energy and energy spread fluc-tuations, intrinsically synchronized plasma photocathode injection compensates charge and current jitters of incoming electron beams, and provides a simultaneous quality boost. Our findings suggest that plasma photocathodes could be ideal injectors for hybrid laser-plasma wakefield accelerators, and nurture prospects for demanding applications such as free-electron lasers.

ORCID iDs

Campbell, D., Heinemann, T., Dickson, A., Wilson, T. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6140-7045, Berman, L., Cerchez, M., Corde, S., Döpp, A., Habib, A. F. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2108-8702, Irman, A., Karsch, S., Martinez De La Ossa, A., Pukhov, A., Reichwein, L., Schramm, U., Sutherland, A. and Hidding, B. ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5827-0041;
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