An Active Plasma Beam Dump for EuPRAXIA Beams

Abstract

Plasma wakefields driven by high power lasers or relativistic particle beams can be orders of magnitude larger than the fields produced in conventional accelerating structures. Since the plasma wakefield is composed not only of accelerating but also of decelerating phases, this paper proposes to utilize the strong decelerating field induced by a laser pulse in the plasma to absorb the beam energy, in a scheme known as the active plasma beam dump. The design of this active plasma beam dump has considered the beam output by the EuPRAXIA facility. Analytical estimates were obtained, and compared with particle-in-cell simulations. The obtained results indicate that this active plasma beam dump can contribute for more compact, safer, and greener accelerators in the near future.

Towards high-sensitivity and low-dose medical imaging with laser x-ray sources

“…These electrons must be deflected into a beam dump where they convert to hundreds of MeV gamma rays, which are hard to shield and also produce energetic neutrons. For clinical applications it may thus be useful to implement also plasma beam dumps, which can decelerate the electrons to energies which are easier to shield [33].…”