Bright electron bunches from a plasma-wakefield accelerator with a steep density down-ramp.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 41672976.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-026-69283-6 and PMC identifier 12902086.
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Abstract
High-brightness electron bunches drive fundamental research in particle physics and photon science. Key to achieving a high brightness is to have a low transverse emittance, which ensures that the bunch can be tightly focussed. In radiofrequency accelerators a low initial emittance can be rapidly degraded due to space charge forces, which are greatly diminished once the electron bunch attains a relativistic velocity. A plasma accelerator can maintain orders-of-magnitude higher accelerating fields than radiofrequency accelerators, while multiple techniques exist to create a low emittance electron bunch directly inside the plasma accelerator structure. Plasma accelerators therefore offer a possibility to create high-brightness bunches in wakefields driven even by low-quality drive bunches. Here we demonstrate the injection and gigavolt-per-metre acceleration of electron bunches with mm-mrad normalised emittance, <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mi>O</mi></math> (10 pC/MeV) spectral density and per-cent-level energy spread, all with excellent reproducibility.