Overview of plasma-based accelerator concepts

TLDR

The paper reviews key physics of plasma wakefield, beat‑wave, and laser wakefield accelerators, covering linear and nonlinear wave properties, electron trapping, and multi‑pulse regimes. It presents analytical expressions for accelerating fields and energy gain across configurations, discusses drive beam propagation, instability limits, and laser guiding techniques. Recent experimental results are summarized, illustrating progress in plasma‑based acceleration performance.

Abstract

An overview is given of the physics issues relevant to the plasma wakefield accelerator, the plasma beat-wave accelerator, the laser wakefield accelerator, including the self-modulated regime, and wakefield accelerators driven by multiple electron or laser pulses. Basic properties of linear and nonlinear plasma waves are discussed, as well as the trapping and acceleration of electrons in the plasma wave. Formulas are presented for the accelerating field and the energy gain in the various accelerator configurations. The propagation of the drive electron or laser beams is discussed, including limitations imposed by key instabilities and methods for optically guiding laser pulses. Recent experimental results are summarized.