[en] The working group has identified the parameters of an afterburner based on the design of a future linear collider. The new design brings the center of mass energy of the collider from 1 to 2 TeV. The afterburner is located in the final focus section of the collider, operates at a gradient of ∼4 GeV/m, and is only about 125 m long. Very important issues remain to be addressed, and include the physics and design of the positron side of the afterburner, as well as of the final focus system. Present plasma wakefield accelerator experiments have reached a level of maturity and of relevance to the afterburner, that make it timely to involve the high energy physics and accelerator community in the afterburner design process. The main result of this working group is the first integration of the designs of a future linear collider and an afterburner

[en] Coherent transition radiation is used to measure the length of the ultra-short electron bunches available at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. The results and the limitations of the method are described

[en] The creation of ultra-high current, ultra-short pulse beams Q=3 nC, σ_z = 20(micro)m at the SLAC FFTB has opened the way for very high gradient plasma wakefield acceleration experiments. We study here the use of these beams in a proposed Cherenkov wakefield experiment, where one may excite electromagnetic wakes in a simple dielectric tube with inner diameter of few 100 microns that exceed the GV/m level. We discuss the scaling of the fields with design geometric design parameters, and choice of dielectric. We also examine measurable aspects of the experiment, such as the total coherent Cerenkov radiation energy one may collect, and the expected aspects of dielectric breakdown at high fields

[en] In the plasma wakefield acceleration experiment E-167, optical transition radiation is used to measure the transverse profile of the electron bunches before and after the plasma acceleration. The distribution of the electric field from a single electron does not give a point-like distribution on the detector, but has a certain extension. Additionally, the resolution of the imaging system is affected by aberrations. The transverse profile of the bunch is thus convolved with a point spread function (PSF). Algorithms that deconvolve the image can help to improve the resolution. Imaged test patterns are used to determine the modulation transfer function of the lens. From this, the PSF can be reconstructed. The Lucy-Richardson algorithm is used to deconvolute this PSF from test images

[en] Ultra-high gradient dielectric wakefield accelerators are a potential option for a linear collider afterburner since they are immune to the ion collapse and electron/positron asymmetry problems implicit in a plasma based afterburner. The first phase of an experiment to study the performance of dielectric Cerenkov wakefield accelerating structures at extremely high gradients in the GV/m range has been completed. The experiment took advantage of the unique SLAC FFTB electron beam and its ultra-short pulse lengths and high currents (e.g., σ_z = 20 (micro)m at Q = 3 nC). The FFTB electron beam was successfully focused down and sent through short lengths of fused silica capillary tubing (ID = 200 (micro)m/OD = 325 (micro)m). The pulse length of the electron beam was varied to produce a range of electric fields between 2 and 20 GV/m at the inner surface of the dielectric tubes. We observed a sharp increase in optical emissions from the capillaries in the middle part of this surface field range which we believe indicates the transition between sustainable field levels and breakdown. If this initial interpretation is correct, the surfaced fields that were sustained equate to on axis accelerating field of several GV/m. In future experiments being developed for the SLAC SABER and BNL ATF we plan to use the coherent Cerenkov radiation emitted from the capillary tube as a field strength diagnostic and demonstrate GV/m range particle energy gain

[en] 3-D Particle-in-cell OSIRIS simulations of the current E-162 Plasma Wakefield Accelerator Experiment are presented in which a number of non-ideal conditions are modeled simultaneously. These include tilts on the beam in both planes, asymmetric beam emittance, beam energy spread and plasma inhomogeneities both longitudinally and transverse to the beam axis. The relative importance of the non-ideal conditions is discussed and a worst case estimate of the effect of these on energy gain is obtained. The simulation output is then propagated through the downstream optics, drift spaces and apertures leading to the experimental diagnostics to provide insight into the differences between actual beam conditions and what is measured. The work represents a milestone in the level of detail of simulation comparisons to plasma experiments

[en] In the E-167 plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA) experiments in the Final Focus Test Beam (FFTB) at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), an ultra-short, 28.5 GeV electron beam field ionizes a neutral column of Lithium vapor. In the underdense regime, all plasma electrons are expelled creating an ion column. The beam electrons undergo multiple betatron oscillations leading to a large flux of broadband synchrotron radiation. With a plasma density of 3 x 10¹⁷cm^-3, the effective focusing gradient is near 9 MT/m with critical photon energies exceeding 50 MeV for on-axis radiation. A positron source is the initial application being explored for these X-rays, as photo-production of positrons eliminates many of the thermal stress and shock wave issues associated with traditional Bremsstrahlung sources. Photo-production of positrons has been well-studied; however, the brightness of plasma X-ray sources provides certain advantages. In this paper, we present results of the simulated radiation spectra for the E-167 experiments, and compute the expected positron yield

[en] Recent electron beam driven plasma wakefield accelerator experiments carried out at SLAC showed trapping of plasma electrons. These trapped electrons appeared on an energy spectrometer with smaller transverse size than the beam driving the wake. A connection is made between transverse size and emittance; due to the spectrometer's resolution, this connection allows for placing an upper limit on the trapped electron emittance. The upper limit for the lowest normalized emittance measured in the experiment is 1 mm · mrad

[en] In the E164 Experiment at that Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), we drive plasma wakes for electron acceleration using 28.5 GeV bunches from the main accelerator. These bunches can now be made with an RMS length of 12 microns, and accurate direct measurement of their lengths is not feasible shot by shot. Instead, we use an indirect technique, measuring the energy spectrum at the end of the linac and comparing with detailed simulations of the entire machine. We simulate with LiTrack, a 2D particle tracking code developed at SLAC. Understanding the longitudinal profile allows a better understanding of acceleration in the plasma wake, as well as investigation of related effects. We discuss the method and validation of our phase space determinations

[en] Recent experiments at SLAC have shown that high gradient acceleration of electrons is achievable in meter scale plasmas [1,2]. Results from these experiments show that the wakefield is sensitive to parameters in the electron beam which drives it. In the experiment the bunch length and beam waist location were varied systematically at constant charge. Here we investigate the correlation of peak beam current to the decelerating gradient. Limits on the transformer ratio will also be discussed. The results are compared to simulation