Physics Considerations for Laser-plasma Linear Colliders

Download or read book Physics Considerations for Laser-plasma Linear Colliders written by and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Physics considerations for a next-generation linear collider based on laser-plasma accelerators are discussed. The ultra-high accelerating gradient of a laser-plasma accelerator and short laser coupling distance between accelerator stages allows for a compact linac. Two regimes of laser-plasma acceleration are discussed. The highly nonlinear regime has the advantages of higher accelerating fields and uniform focusing forces, whereas the quasi-linear regime has the advantage of symmetric accelerating properties for electrons and positrons. Scaling of various accelerator and collider parameters with respect to plasma density and laser wavelength are derived. Reduction of beamstrahlung effects implies the use of ultra-short bunches of moderate charge. The total linac length scales inversely with the square root of the plasma density, whereas the total power scales proportional to the square root of the density. A 1 TeV center-of-mass collider based on stages using a plasma density of 1017 cm−3 requires tens of J of laser energy per stage (using 1 [mu]m wavelength lasers) with tens of kHz repetition rate. Coulomb scattering and synchrotron radiation are examined and found not to significantly degrade beam quality. A photon collider based on laser-plasma accelerated beams is also considered. The requirements for the scattering laser energy are comparable to those of a single laser-plasma accelerator stage.